🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Media Rules, Says UK Media Regulator The British broadcaster engaged in a "major breach" of industry standards by not revealing that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas official, as ruled by British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An probe by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading". The BBC's director general had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". The authority has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings. "Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a timing to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Undermine Credibility' The authority's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-administered authority was substantially inaccurate. "Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented. "Trust is at the core of the connection between a broadcaster and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This oversight had the potential to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which reflects clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."