BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
