British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's report stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are determined."