British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
