BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening statement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a timing to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Damage Confidence'

The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the narrator's father held a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.

"Confidence is at the center of the bond between a media organization and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of credibility that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."

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