British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."
