BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
