BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme 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 instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
