BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
