BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

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

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

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Erode Credibility'

The authority's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was materially misleading.

"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the possibility to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."