British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
