British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
