British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
