British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
