BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
