BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
