British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
