BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."