BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
