British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has instructed the corporation to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Damage Confidence'

The watchdog's announcement stated: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent served in a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the voice and the details he shared.

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

"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."