British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

The authority has ordered the corporation to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the risk to erode the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."