BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
