British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
