British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, 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 documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
