British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
