British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
