British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."