BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions 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 corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
