British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement 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 aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."