British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
