British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
