British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."