British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
