BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
