British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
