🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Film Considered a 'Significant' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, Declares UK Media Regulator The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness". Ofcom has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its decisions. "As this represents a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said. 'Potential to Damage Credibility' The regulator's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's parent held a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the viewers did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the voice and the details he presented. "Confidence is at the core of the bond between a media organization and its public, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This oversight had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict." The programme was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry found it infringed the organization's journalistic standards on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the timing and wording are finalised."