British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal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 corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
