BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC 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 son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
