British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
