British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
