BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
