BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

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

Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a prime-time declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Damage Confidence'

The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the details he shared.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."