BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's statement said: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he shared.
"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
