BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
