BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
