BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."