British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
