BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
