British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."