British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."