British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
