Two senior BBC executives resigned suddenly on Sunday (November 9) after… The Daily Telegraph The report claimed that the BBC misleadingly edited a speech given by Donald Trump on January 6, 2020, before MAGA supporters stormed Capitol Hill.
Tim Davie said: “Like all public organisations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent and accountable.” Who resigned as Director General of the BBCin a statement on Sunday. “While this is not the only reason, the current controversy surrounding BBC News understandably contributed to my decision.”
Deborah Turness, chief executive of BBC News, also resigned. She said: “The ongoing controversy… has reached a stage where it is causing harm to the BBC… The responsibility lies with me.” It is worth noting that Torness insisted that despite the ongoing controversy, “recent claims that BBC News is institutionally biased are false.”
Indeed, some news insiders suggested that the exit of senior figures was not simply a reaction to external criticism, but the result of an internal coup at the highest levels of the BBC.
“It was a coup, and worse still, it was an inside job. There were people within the BBC, very close to the board… on the board, who systematically undermined Tim Davie and his senior team over a period (of time) and this went on for a long time. What happened yesterday did not happen in isolation,” said David Yelland, former editor of The Sun, and co-host of the podcast series. When it hits the fanHe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Allegations
One week before Americans voted to return Donald Trump to the White House last year, the BBC aired an hour-long panorama special called Trump: A second chance? (Panorama is a documentary series broadcast by the BBC since 1953.)
A year later, on November 3, the conservative-leaning British newspaper published The Daily Telegraph published a story claiming that the BBC doctored footage of Trump for the aforementioned documentary. The report cited an internal memo written by Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Authority.
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The note that The Daily Telegraph It has now been released in full, accusing the BBC of dangerous bias in its reporting, and of ignoring concerns raised by people like Prescott.
“My view is that the BBC executive has repeatedly failed to implement the necessary measures to solve outstanding problems, and in many cases has simply refused to acknowledge that there is a problem at all,” Prescott wrote to the BBC’s public broadcaster board.
Prescott complained of bias on a range of topics, from reporting on Gaza on BBC Arabic, which he said was “pro-Hamas”, to coverage on LGBTQ+ issues (he wrote: “…LGBTQ desk staff will refuse to cover any story that raises difficult questions about the transgender debate”).
But the most played point The Daily Telegraphpartly due to details provided by Prescott himself in the memo, was about Trump’s documentary. Prescott wrote:
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“…When examining the charge that Trump incited protesters to storm Capitol Hill, it emerged that Panorama combined two clips from separate parts of his speech. The syndicated version of Trump’s comments broadcast by Panorama made it appear as if he said: “We will march to the Capitol and I will be with you and we will fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore.“ In fact, the first part of Trump’s speech: “We’ll walk to the Capitol and I’ll be with you“, came 15 minutes into the speech. The second half of the sentence broadcast by Panorama, “And we are fighting. We fight like hell.“He came after 54 minutes. Fifteen minutes into the speech, what Trump actually said: “We’ll walk to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know everyone here will soon be marching to the Capitol to make your voices heard peacefully and patriotically.“ Story continues below this ad It was completely misleading to edit the clip the way Panorama broadcast it…” |
Politics at play
The Daily TelegraphThe BBC report encouraged critics of the BBC, who have long accused the broadcaster of editorial bias.
It is worth noting that the White House directly pursued the outlet who covered Trump. In response to the leaked memo, White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt accused the BBC of being “willfully dishonest” over its depiction of the Capitol Hill insurrection.
Large numbers of conservative critics have also accumulated in Britain. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Tory, wrote on Channel
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Nigel Farage, UK reform leader, said: “It is not surprising that fewer people are paying the BBC license fee every year.” (The BBC is funded primarily by license fees paid by British households.)
But insiders also suggest that the attack on the BBC has been in the works for months, and is part of a larger right-wing campaign to gain more control over the organisation.
“There is clearly real concern about standards and editorial errors,” Nick Robinson, host of Today, the leading morning radio programme, wrote on social media. “There is also a political campaign by people who want to destroy the organization.”
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Senior journalist Adam Bolton, the former political editor of Sky News, said on Channel He said it is not unusual to edit together parts of a long speech to accurately summarize it.
This “coup” comes amid ongoing efforts by conservative politicians to push the BBC to the right. The Guardian It was reported that Prescott’s appointment as an external adviser was prompted by BBC board member Robbie Gibb, Prime Minister Theresa May’s former head of communications who helped set up the right-wing broadcaster GB News. Gibb was appointed to this position by Johnson.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the Labor Party, privately said he did not think the BBC was “Institutionally biased.”
BBC chief Samir Shah apologized on Monday for this “An error in judgement” and promised better accountability in the future. However, he rejected the suggestion that the BBC had “sought to bury” the issues highlighted by Prescott in his leaked memo, describing it as “simply not true”.
