🔗 Share this article

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Risk to Damage Confidence'

The regulator's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."