British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
