British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
