BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
