British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
