British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
