British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
