🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, States Ofcom The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings. "As this represents a major infringement of our code, we are ordering the corporation to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Erode Confidence' The authority's statement declared: "Our probe concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father occupied a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the narrator and the information he provided. "Credibility is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of confidence that viewers would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the organization's content policies on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We have apologised for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are determined."