BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's statement declared: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."
