British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
