British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
