British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
