BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
