BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
