British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
