BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."