British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom

The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be determined," it said.

'Risk to Erode Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."