British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
