BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
