BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

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

The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."