British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."