BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."