🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Infringement of Media Standards, Says Broadcasting Watchdog The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the voice of a programme about the Gaza situation was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "significantly deceptive". The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness". The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a prime-time statement about its findings. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," it said. 'Potential to Damage Trust' The authority's announcement said: "Our investigation concluded that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate. "Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the details he presented. "Credibility is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its public, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the potential to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza." The documentary was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an internal BBC review concluded it breached the organization's editorial guidelines on factual correctness. A corporation official stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We have apologised for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are finalised."