British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement said: "Our probe found that the film's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.
"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement 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 corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
