BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening statement about its findings.
"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Damage Trust'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
