British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, Says Ofcom

The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its conclusions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The authority's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."