BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
