British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
