🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The public service broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas official, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has instructed the corporation to transmit a peak-time announcement about its findings. "Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read. 'Risk to Damage Trust' The regulator's statement said: "Our probe determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a role in the Hamas-administered authority was materially misleading. "Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided. "Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This failing had the possibility to erode the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The film was pulled from iPlayer in the month of February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review concluded it infringed the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance 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 factual correctness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and language are determined."