BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."