BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film 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 directed the BBC to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be finalised," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The regulator's announcement said: "Our probe determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the boy's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 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 penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."