British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
