British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom

The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

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

The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.

'Potential to Undermine Trust'

The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

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