British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to air a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, 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 full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
