British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results 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 aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
