British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
