BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Rules, Says 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 offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The programme was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."