British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
