British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
