BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
