BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
