British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."