British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
