British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom

The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The watchdog's announcement said: "Our investigation found that the programme's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.

"This implied that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the details he provided.

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

"This failing had the possibility to damage the significantly high amounts of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film 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 Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the date and language are finalised."