The BBC engaged in a "serious breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.
An inquiry by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, noting there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness".
The authority has instructed the BBC to transmit a evening announcement about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on the BBC's second channel at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," it said.
'Risk to Undermine Credibility'
The regulator's report stated: "Our probe concluded that the programme's failure to disclose that the presenter's male guardian occupied a role in the Hamas-run authority was substantially inaccurate.
"Consequently that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the voice and the information he presented.
"Credibility is at the center of the connection between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the public broadcaster.
"This error had the risk to damage the very considerable degrees of trust that viewers would have placed in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The film was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's family links were revealed, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A representative for the broadcaster said: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will comply with the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."
