BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom
The BBC committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.
"As this represents a serious breach of our code, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Undermine Confidence'
The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
