British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
