British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."