British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, 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 the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
