British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
