BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says UK Media Regulator

The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

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

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

The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.

"As this represents a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be finalised," the statement read.

'Risk to Undermine Credibility'

The authority's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the programme's lack of disclosure that the voice's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.

"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the narrator and the content he presented.

"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the significantly high degrees of confidence that audiences would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."