British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 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 adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
