BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".

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

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he shared.

"Trust is at the center of the bond between a television network and its viewers, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high levels of trust that audiences would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."