BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of confidence that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
