British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe found that the film's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."