BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
