British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States Ofcom

The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".

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

The authority has instructed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the information he presented.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the presenter's familial connections were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the date and wording are finalised."