BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An investigation by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are directing the BBC to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Trust'

The authority's report declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.

"It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."