British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
