British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The authority's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
