British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."
