BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Ofcom

The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

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

The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Undermine Credibility'

The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.

"Trust is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on truthfulness.

A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement 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 corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."