British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom

The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has directed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Damage Credibility'

The watchdog's statement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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

The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

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