BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Erode Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."
