British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
