British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
