BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."