British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
