BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
