British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
