BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
