British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme 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 broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
