BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Ofcom
The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".
The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The watchdog's report declared: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."
