BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator

The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.

"Trust is at the heart of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

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

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."