British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
