BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
