British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict 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 determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
