British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."