British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Erode Trust'
The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
