BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
