British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
