British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
