British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The authority's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
