BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
