BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator
The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.
'Potential to Erode Confidence'
The watchdog's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."
