British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
