BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
