BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator

The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".

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

The authority has ordered the corporation to air a evening announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.

'Risk to Erode Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "Our probe found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father occupied a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he provided.

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

"This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."