British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom

The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he provided.

"Trust is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the organization's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."