BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
