BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
