British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
