BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
