BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

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

The authority has ordered the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The regulator's statement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."