BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has directed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Damage Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high amounts of trust that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."