BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation 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 statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
