British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme 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 authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
