BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
