BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC 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 statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement 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 reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."