BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in 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 conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
