BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Ofcom

The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

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

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its decisions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Risk to Damage Confidence'

The authority's report stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run 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 content he provided.

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

"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are confirmed."