BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Ofcom

The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has directed the corporation to air a evening statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our probe found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."