BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
