British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator

The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

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

The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a prime-time announcement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," it said.

'Potential to Damage Trust'

The watchdog's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its viewers, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of confidence that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson commented: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."