British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance 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 factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."