BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Ofcom

The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

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

Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the BBC to air a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.

"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the risk to undermine the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."