BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
