British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
