BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".

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

Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Erode Credibility'

The authority's report said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he shared.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The regulator's decision 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 factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."