British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."