British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Media Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has ordered the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he presented.

"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This error had the potential to damage the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that the public would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was removed from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."