British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
