British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."