British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The authority's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the details he presented.

"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."