BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."