British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
