BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
