British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
