BBC asks Trump for apology

Two executives have resigned and the remaining trust is gone after the scandal where BBC was caught manipulating a speech by the American president. Now the channel is asking Trump for an apology.

BBC’s director general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness announced their resignation due to questions of bias after a BBC Panorama special program edited Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, to make it seem like he had encouraged supporters to storm the Capitol.

The manipulation was not accidental, and many argue that BBC has been institutionally biased for decades. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage also accuses BBC of election interference.

Trump’s lawyers have demanded that BBC retract the false claims about him in the documentary, otherwise they may be sued for a billion dollars in damages.

Now BBC admits to making a mistake and asks Trump for an apology. However, it is stated that the editing “inadvertently” created the impression of showing a single continuous part of the speech rather than excerpts from different parts of it, and that this gave the erroneous impression that Trump had called for violent actions.

“BBC wants to apologize to President Trump for the erroneous judgment,” the channel writes.

Personal letter

BBC’s chairman Samir Shah has also sent a separate personal letter to the White House, clearly stating to Trump that he and BBC regret the editing of the president’s speech on January 6, 2021.

At the same time, they claim not to agree that there are grounds for the potential billion-dollar lawsuit.

Another case

BBC also states that they are investigating a possible second case where a speech by President Trump was edited in a misleading manner. This concerns BBC Newsnight, which edited images from the same speech to make it appear that Trump was encouraging his supporters to riot. The editing is similar to the version aired in the Panorama program.

In response to the latest revelations, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said that it was “now clear that BBC has engaged in a pattern of defamation against President Trump”.