British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."