BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
