British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
