BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator

The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

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

The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a evening statement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Possibility to Erode Confidence'

The regulator's announcement said: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father served in a post in the Hamas-run government was substantially inaccurate.

"It meant that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.

"Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This failing had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The programme was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review found it infringed the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

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