British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are finalised."
