British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
