British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
