BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
