British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
