The BBC apologized this past weekend for airing 15 programs in violation of “the corporation’s rules on sponsorship or conflict of interest,” Journalism.co.uk reported.
As Journalism.co.uk reported, the programs “were all bought from independent producers – including a series of documentaries about Malaysia made by an independent producer found to have close financial links with the Malaysian government.”
The BBC’s Feb. 10 apology said in part:
“A small number of programmes broadcast on BBC World News between February 2009 and July 2011 broke BBC rules aimed at protecting our editorial integrity.”
The programs either didn’t disclose the “financial relationship between the sponsor and the production company” or had conflict of interest because of who their sponsor was, according to the apology. The BBC noted that “None of the programmes breached the BBC guidelines on impartiality and none of the BBC’s news bulletins was affected.”