British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
