BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
