British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
