British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring 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 chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance 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 aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."