British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog
The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.
'Risk to Undermine Trust'
The authority's statement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.
"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."
The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."