BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our probe determined that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
