British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
