British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
