British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
