British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
