British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority 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 already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
