British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.
"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
