BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."