BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Says Ofcom
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".
Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
