British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'
The regulator's report declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
