BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Breach of Media Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.

"This implied that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination 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 accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."