British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have 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 ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Erode Credibility'
The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and language are confirmed."
