British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
