British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's family links came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
