BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results 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 regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
