British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
