BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are determined."
