British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results 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 regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
