BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
