British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
