British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
