BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to accuracy".

The authority has instructed the corporation to transmit a prime-time declaration about its conclusions.

"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are directing the BBC to broadcast a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated.

'Risk to Damage Credibility'

The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the details he shared.

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

"This failing had the possibility to undermine the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We have apologised for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."