BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."
