BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."