British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error 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 expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
