BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
