BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
