BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
