British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
