BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
