BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation 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 concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."