BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary 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 prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."