BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
