BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
