British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."