British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The authority has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the possibility to damage the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."