British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom

The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined 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 BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has directed the BBC to air a prime-time statement about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The regulator's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian served in a post in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the content he provided.

"Trust is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the organization's content policies on accuracy.

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 film in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the date and wording are determined."