BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The authority's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."