BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to erode the very considerable levels of trust that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement 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 truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."