British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has directed the BBC to transmit a peak-time announcement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," it said.

'Potential to Erode Trust'

The authority's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the details he presented.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A corporation official said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are determined."