British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
