BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
