The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "significantly deceptive".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".
The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its findings.
"As this represents a significant violation of our code, we are instructing the corporation to air a message of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.
'Possibility to Damage Confidence'
The authority's report declared: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's father held a position in the Hamas-run authority was significantly deceptive.
"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he provided.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a television network and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.
"This oversight had the potential to damage the very considerable amounts of credibility that viewers would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."
The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in last February after the narrator's familial connections were revealed, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it violated the organization's content policies on truthfulness.
A corporation official said: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on accuracy, which corresponds to regulation 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.
"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the regulator's ruling in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."
