British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator

The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "materially misleading".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has directed the corporation to air a evening declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a statement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Erode Trust'

The watchdog's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was significantly deceptive.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the narrator and the details he provided.

"Credibility is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with 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 adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."