BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the findings 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 Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
