British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
