British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

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

The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Risk to Erode Trust'

The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the content he shared.

"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This error had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that audiences would have invested 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 narrator's personal associations emerged, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."