BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has directed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Possibility to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's report declared: "Our probe found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.

"Trust is at the center of the connection between a media organization and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

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

The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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