British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
