British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.
An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.
"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.
'Risk to Damage Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's content policies on factual correctness.
A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
