British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
