British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Undermine Trust'

The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Trust is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility 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The film was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are finalised."