British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance 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 accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
