British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog
The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".
The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.
'Possibility to Erode Trust'
The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he shared.
"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."
The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."