British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom

The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "significantly deceptive".

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

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The regulator's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father held a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he provided.

"Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from the online platform in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."