British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The watchdog's report said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings 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 regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."
