BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
