British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
