British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
