British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."