BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
