British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.

An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "materially misleading".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening announcement about its decisions.

"As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's report declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the significantly high levels of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are finalised."