British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."