BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
