BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."
