BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects 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 follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
