BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
