British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
