British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Infringement of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has directed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to air a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The regulator's statement stated: "Our investigation concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.

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

"This oversight had the risk to damage the exceptionally strong degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."