British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
