BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom

The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.

"This implied that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."