BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
