British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
