British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
