British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Broadcasting Rules, Declares UK Media Regulator

The public service broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the voice of a film about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Credibility'

The watchdog's statement declared: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.

"This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the voice and the information he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the connection between a media organization and its audience, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong degrees of credibility that the public would have put in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The film was withdrawn from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the organization's content policies on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we accept the authority's determination in its entirety. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."