British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
