British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator

The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

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

Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.

'Potential to Undermine Credibility'

The watchdog's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the voice's father served in a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the voice and the content he presented.

"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the risk to erode the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's content policies on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."