British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded 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".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
