BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The authority has instructed the BBC to air a evening statement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Undermine Credibility'

The regulator's announcement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.

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

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

The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."