British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
