British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom 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 earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
