BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Media Standards, Says Ofcom

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The authority has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Risk to Undermine Confidence'

The authority's report declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he presented.

"Trust is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the broadcaster's content policies on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."