BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
