BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
