British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Media Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
