BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."
