BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The regulator has instructed the BBC to air a peak-time statement about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the corporation to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Potential to Erode Confidence'

The regulator's statement stated: "Our probe determined that the programme's omission to reveal that the voice's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the information he shared.

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

"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of confidence that audiences would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness.

A corporation official commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."