The BBC issued an official apology to President Donald Trump on Thursday for a misleading edit of his January 6 speech, though it rejected his allegation of defamation.
In its apology, the BBC admitted to splicing together portions of Trump’s January 6 speech in a way that made it appear that he was calling for violence. The apology comes after Trump threatened to file a $1 billion defamation suit against the media outlet over its “Trump: A Second Chance?” documentary broadcast by BBC Panorama.
“This program was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s 6th January 2021 speech was edited,” the outlet said in a statement on its Corrections and Clarification page. “During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech. However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.”
“The BBC would like to apologize to President Trump for that error of judgement. This programme was not scheduled to be re-broadcast and will not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms,” it added.
In a separate letter to the White House, BBC Chair Samir Shah again apologized to Trump.
“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,” he said.
For the last week, the BBC has been roiled over the controversy, with two executives announcing their resignation on Sunday over the incident and a leaked internal memo discussing problems of “systematic bias” at the outlet.
“Like all public organizations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent and accountable,” said Tim Davie, one of the executives who stepped down last weekend. “While not being the only reason, the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to my decision. Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility.”
In a separate report on Thursday, The Telegraph said that BBC Newsnight had edited Trump’s January 6 speech in a similar manner in a 2022 episode. A lawyer for Trump told The Telegraph that it was “now clear that BBC engaged in a pattern of defamation against President Trump.”
Trump has filed numerous lawsuits against news outlets over defamation allegations. In one instance, he was paid $15 million by ABC News after he sued the outlet over false claims made by anchor George Stephanopoulos.
.png)
.png)
