BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "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 corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
