British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
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 ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
