British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," it said.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our investigation determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he shared.

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

"This error had the potential to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson 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 truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."