BBC Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Says UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.

"Trust is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are determined."