BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
