British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States UK Media Regulator

The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the corporation to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Erode Confidence'

The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the risk to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

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