BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."