British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
