British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme 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 peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
