British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
