British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
