British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
