BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
