BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom

The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "materially misleading".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.

"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."