BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "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 BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
