BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
