British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
