BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening declaration about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
