British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."
