🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Broadcasting Standards, States UK Media Regulator The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness". Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time statement about its conclusions. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are directing the corporation to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Possibility to Erode Confidence' The watchdog's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian served in a position in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading. "It meant that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the content he presented. "Trust is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This failing had the possibility to damage the very considerable degrees of credibility that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The film was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness. A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, 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 authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."