British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement 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 clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
