British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary 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 agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
