British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
