British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
