BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation 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, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."