BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has directed the BBC to air a evening statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's statement said: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.

"Trust is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its public, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."