British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
