British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has ordered the corporation to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's announcement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This error had the possibility to erode the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was removed from the online platform in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in complete. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."