BBC apologises to Trump over doc edit but rejects defamation lawsuit threat
UK broadcaster the BBC has apologised to Donald Trump for the way it edited his January 6 speech in a documentary but dismissed the idea the US president has sufficient grounds for a defamation lawsuit.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the BBC said its lawyers had written to Trump’s legal team and chair Samir Shah had sent a personal letter to Trump apologising for the incident. The pubcaster added that it has no plans to rebroadcast the doc, which aired in the Panorama strand.
In the episode in question, titled Trump: A Second Chance?, a speech Trump made on January 6, 2021 was edited by splicing together two sound bites to make it appear that he directly encouraged his supporters to storm the US Capitol Building.
The problematic nature of the edit was flagged in an internal memo penned by former BBC advisor Michael Prescott. The memo was leaked as part of an investigation by UK newspaper The Telegraph, bringing the issue into the public eye and setting into motion a frantic chain of events that led to director-general Tim Davie and chief executive of news Deborah Turness stepping down.
Trump responded by threatening to sue the corporation for US$1bn unless the BBC apologised, issued a retraction and compensated him, setting a deadline of 22.00 GMT (17.00 EST) on Friday for the corporation to respond.
“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” said the BBC on Thursday.
The White House has not yet responded to the BBC’s statement. Earlier in the week, Trump told Fox News he felt he had an “obligation” to pursue a legal claim.
In the initial letter to the BBC, Trump’s legal team claimed the president had suffered “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” as a result of the documentary and claimed the BBC “intentionally sought to completely mislead its viewers” by splicing together the speech in the way it did.
Elsewhere, creative industries union Bectu has called for the removal Robbie Gibb from the BBC board following the resignations of Davie and Turness.
Gibb has long been a controversial figure at the pubcaster. He was director of communications for Conservative prime minister Theresa May and is a former adviser to right wing outlet GB News but now oversees the corporation’s impartiality mission. In her 2022 MacTaggart lecture, former Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis described Gibb as an “active agent” of the ruling Conservative Party, shaping the corporation’s news output by acting as “the arbiter of BBC impartiality.”
Bectu the biggest union in the BBC, has written to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and Chair of the BBC Board Samir Shah demanding his removal. “Many BBC staff are concerned that Gibb is a direct block to the BBC maintaining its chartered objective of independence,” the union said in a statement.
Philippa Childs, head of Bectu, said: “This is a critical period for the BBC as it enters charter renewal. It would be folly to navigate it with both a vacuum at the top and a board member who is widely viewed as divisive and damaging. The Culture Secretary has been very clear in her support for the BBC and its independence. It is time for her to demonstrate that by acting now to ensure the most impartial board possible for the organisation – that means Robbie Gibb has to go.”
Worldwide, the debacle has put other PSBs on edge, with ABC News in Australia also issuing a statement this week defending a documentary it aired about the January 6 riot at the Capitol Building. Managing director Hugh Marks criticised News Corp and Sky News for insinuating that an ABC News doc, titled Downfall – The Last Days of President Trump and broadcast in 2021, was similarly guilty of misleadingly editing Trump’s speech.
Trump: A Second Chance? aired on the eve of the US election
“The editing did not change the meaning of that section of the speech and did not mislead the audience,” said Marks, adding that the programme was “consistent with the ABC’s high standards of factual, accurate and impartial storytelling.”
In a letter to the UK’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, the BBC’s Shah conceded the edit “did give the impression of a direct call for violent action,” characterising it as an “error of judgement” on the part of the pubcaster.
The BBC has faced a string of accusations in recent months that its reporting lacks impartiality. In addition to accusations of having an anti-Trump bias, the leaked Prescott memo also claims the broadcaster has shown anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza conflict and one-sided coverage of transgender stories.
