British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination 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 accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are finalised."
