British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement 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 factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
