🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Standards, States Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the voice of a film about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness". The authority has ordered the BBC to transmit a evening declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a significant violation of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to transmit a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Potential to Damage Credibility' The authority's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the film's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was substantially inaccurate. "Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided. "Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a television network and its audience, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of credibility that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict." The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on accuracy. A BBC spokesperson commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We expressed regret for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and language are finalised."