British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention 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 media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
