BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
