British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
