British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
