🔗 Share this article

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".

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

The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's report stated: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he shared.

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

"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."