British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Trust'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
