BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom

The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.

"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."