BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
