British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom

The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."