BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a prime-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The authority's statement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he shared.

"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to damage the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and wording are determined."