British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."