British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
