British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence 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 erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
