British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry 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 truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."