BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
