British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "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 BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
