🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, States UK Media Regulator The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a prime-time announcement about its conclusions. "Since this amounts to a significant violation of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to broadcast a message of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be confirmed," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Damage Trust' The authority's statement stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's parent served in a role in the Hamas-administered government was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he provided. "Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its audience, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the risk to damage the very considerable amounts of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was withdrawn from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review determined it violated the organization's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We issued an apology for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."