British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
