British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have invested 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 familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
