British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
