BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered 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 BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"This error had the possibility to damage the very considerable amounts of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links emerged, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
