British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."