British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
