BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
