BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe 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 previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the corporation to transmit a prime-time statement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The authority's report stated: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This failing had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."

Mark Medina
Mark Medina

A seasoned journalist with a passion for uncovering stories that matter in the Czech Republic and beyond.