🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Programme Considered a 'Serious' Violation of Media Standards, States UK Media Regulator The BBC committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to transmit a peak-time declaration about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a serious breach of our code, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Possibility to Damage Confidence' The regulator's statement declared: "Our investigation determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian held a post in the Hamas-run administration was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the content he provided. "Confidence is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation. "This failing had the possibility to undermine the exceptionally strong amounts of trust that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza." The film was pulled from the online platform in the month of February after the presenter's familial connections came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will follow the sanction as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."