BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."