British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
