British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
