BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
