British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
