British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator

The BBC committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he shared.

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

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

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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