British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
