British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."