British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."