BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
