British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
