British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
