British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Standards, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Confidence'

The authority's announcement said: "The inquiry we conducted found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he shared.

"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and language are determined."