BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
