British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
