British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
