British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
