British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
