British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States Ofcom

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to transmit a prime-time statement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Damage Trust'

The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."