British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
