British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."