British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
