BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 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 directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."