British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
