BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
