British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
