British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 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 schedule and language are confirmed."
