BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
