BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
