BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
