BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
