BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, States UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Undermine Trust'

The regulator's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father held a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A corporation official commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

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