The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention 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 Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to accuracy".
The regulator has ordered the BBC to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.
"Since this amounts to a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a announcement of our conclusions against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered administration was materially misleading.
"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared.
"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a media organization and its viewers, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This error had the potential to damage the significantly high amounts of trust that the public would have placed 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 were revealed, and in this past July an internal BBC review found it breached the broadcaster's journalistic standards on truthfulness.
A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in line with the conclusions of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.
"We issued an apology for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the penalty as soon as the timing and wording are determined."
