British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
