BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
