British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
