British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government 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.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
