BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's report said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.

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

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high levels of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in line with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."