BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."
