British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
