BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to air a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
