BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has instructed the corporation to air a evening statement about its decisions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was removed from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
