BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
