BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
