BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."