British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information 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 potential to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions 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 regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
