BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
