BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Erode Trust'

The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.

"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."