British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
