British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
