🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The BBC committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the film was "substantially inaccurate". The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy". Ofcom has instructed the BBC to transmit a prime-time announcement about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a schedule to be finalised," the statement read. 'Possibility to Erode Credibility' The authority's report declared: "Our investigation found that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading. "This implied that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the narrator and the details he presented. "Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC. "This oversight had the risk to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have put in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it violated the organization's journalistic standards on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."