British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
