BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
