BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
