BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom

The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Trust'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the voice and the information he provided.

"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."