British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line 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 truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
