BBC Gaza Programme Deemed a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has ordered the broadcaster to air a peak-time announcement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.

'Potential to Erode Confidence'

The authority's statement said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the voice's parent occupied a post in the Hamas-administered authority was significantly deceptive.

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

"Trust is at the center of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in the month of February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the organization's content policies on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and language are determined."

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