British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
