British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
