BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"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 date and language are finalised."
