British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."