British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Trust'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's content policies on accuracy.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."
