British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
