BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message 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 Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
