🔗 Share this article

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.

'Possibility to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's statement said: "Our probe determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."