BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions 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 corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
