BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
