BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are determined."
