British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."
