British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
