British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."