British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
