The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a evening statement about its conclusions.
"As this represents a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to air a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at 9pm, with a timing to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Trust'
The regulator's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent served in a post in the Hamas-controlled authority was materially misleading.
"This implied that the public did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its public, especially for a public service broadcaster such as the public broadcaster.
"This failing had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of confidence that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."
The documentary was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's personal associations emerged, and in this past July an broadcaster's internal assessment found 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 major oversight in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which reflects clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We have apologised for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the date and wording are finalised."
