BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
