British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
