British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."
