British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
