British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-run administration was materially misleading.

"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.

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

"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable amounts of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."