BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'
The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.
"Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."
The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."
