BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
