British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
