A damning memo shows the BBC's issues are bigger than its coverage of Donald Trump

To outsiders, the headline story of the resignations of the BBC chief, Tim Davie, and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, appears to be a straightforward case of cause and effect.

Depending on your perspective, it is an appropriate response to a very bad editorial call, or possibly, a somewhat dark exercise in a public broadcaster bending to political pressure at home and abroad.

The BBC runs a program that contains a misleading edit of a Donald Trump speech; the White House complains (loudly); the two executives resign.

And not just any executives. The resignation of Davie, the BBC's director-general (or chief executive), particularly sent shock waves through the organisation.

Was this a terrible editing decision with disproportionate fallout? A disturbing case of Trump extending the ambit of his many attacks from the US media to international broadcasters since returning to office? Or an outcome that was both proportionate and unavoidable?

It is all a bit more complicated than the simple string of events would suggest.

'Despair at inaction' prompts a damning memo

Trump has now threatened to sue the BBC for $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) over the edit, his lawyers claiming it has caused him "overwhelming financial and reputational harm".

But it is not the BBC Panorama program about Trump alone that has caused such grief at the British public broadcaster.

Equally, it is not even Trump who represents the biggest political threat to the "Beeb".

What has been most devastating for the BBC in the past week has been the leaking to London's Telegraph newspaper of an 8,000-word letter of complaint to the broadcaster's board, written by its former special adviser on editorial standards.

The complaint, by standards adviser and well-regarded journalist Michael Prescott, outlined several complaints against the BBC's coverage of issues ranging from Trump to the conflict in Gaza, climate change and LGBTQ issues.

What is most damning is Prescott's documentation of the BBC's failure to deal with the issues or correct the record.

Prescott's letter notes that he resigned as one of two independent external advisers to the corporation after three years in the job with "profound and unresolved concerns about the BBC".

"Since leaving, I have thought long and hard about what, if anything, to do about this.

"My conclusion is that these concerns are serious enough for me to draw them to your attention, in your oversight role of the BBC.

"My view is that the Executive repeatedly failed to implement measures to resolve highlighted problems, and in many cases simply refused to acknowledge there was an issue at all.

"Indeed, I would argue that the Executive's attitude when confronted with evidence of serious and systemic problems is now a systemic problem in itself — meaning the last recourse for action is the Board."

Prescott says that "one of the defences often deployed by the BBC when criticised by external organisations is to claim the evidence presented is mere 'cherry picking'".

But he notes that an internal report by the BBC's Editorial Guidance and Standards Committee (EGSC) "came from within the BBC and was produced by a very experienced and talented BBC journalist".

"Yet his findings were still, on the whole, dismissed or ignored, even after EGSC members tried to press home the case for full-blooded action.

"I served as the Political Editor of the Sunday Times for 10 years, and in corporate advisory roles since then, including as Corporate Affairs Director of BT.

"I think it is important to state that I have never been a member of any political party and do not hold any hard and fast views on matters such as American politics or disputes in the Middle East.

"My views on the BBC's treatment of the subjects covered below do not come with any political agenda.

"Rather, what motivated me to prepare this note is despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light. On no other occasion in my professional life have I witnessed what I did at the BBC with regard to how management dealt with (or failed to deal with) serious recurrent problems."

The BBC's mistakes have left the broadcaster vulnerable

The times in which we live mean that, even as some of the most prominent people in the world promulgate "fake news", public broadcasters are particularly held to ever higher standards of account — often legitimately, sometimes maliciously.

It is the case that public broadcasters have long been the target of competitors, and of conservative politicians, who call for them to be defunded and closed down.

There is an element of this in the hyperbole from both The Telegraph and conservative politicians about the BBC in the past week.

"The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught "doctoring" my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th," Trump posted on Truth Social platform.

"Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt 'Journalists.' These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!"

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said: "This is the BBC's last chance. If they don't get this right, there will be vast numbers of people refusing to pay the licence fee."

(The BBC is funded by a "licence fee" applied to any household watching a televised broadcast or streamed).

Telegraph columnists argue that the broadcaster's future is now in doubt.

But it is also true that the British broadcaster has left itself vulnerable both by making mistakes and failing to properly publicly account for them, with both factors eroding its credibility with the public.

Prescott told the BBC board that "Deborah Turness tried to justify the doctored video and mangled timeline of the day by citing the US Congressional Committee on Trump's role in the January 6th riots — the one which concluded he was involved in a 'multi-part conspiracy' to overturn the legal results of the 2020 election".

It is true that Trump was eventually indicted by a grand jury for his actions on and around January 6 (charges that were dropped when he regained the White House).

But does that justify an edit that would leave an uninformed viewer with a completely incorrect understanding of what the US president had said on January 6, 2021? No.

Prescott said another BBC Global News director, Jonathan Munro, told the standards committee that "there was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr Trump's speech before the riot at the Capitol" and that it was "normal practice to edit speeches into short-form clips".

"The idea that it might be 'normal practice' at the BBC to make people say things they didn't is a chilling thought indeed," the Telegraph opined.

Overnight, in a letter to MPs, BBC chair Samir Shah apologised for the edit, admitting an "error of judgement" had been made.

BBC could face pressure for more heads to roll

BBC director-general Tim Davie is no stranger to controversy.

In March 2023, the veteran sports commentator Gary Lineker was suspended for comparing the then-British government's migration policy to Nazi Germany in comments on social media.

The broadcaster was paralysed for days over the issue, and whether this was an issue of freedom of speech or the need to show impartiality. Lineker was eventually reinstated.

A year later, Davie emailed all staff about antisemitism at the corporation, amid ongoing criticism of the BBC's coverage of Hamas's October 7 attacks on Israel and the war in Gaza.

The BBC then admitted it had known for five months that veteran newsreader Huw Edwards had been arrested in November 2023 on child pornography charges, but that it had allowed him to keep working until April 2024.

There were more allegations of sexually inappropriate conduct concerning the MasterChef program, and then in February this year, the revelation a BBC documentary about Gaza had featured a narration by the son of a Hamas official.

There were also complaints of pro-Hamas bias on the BBC's Arabic service, which had led to the service making 215 corrections and clarifications over two years on stories that were found to be biased, inaccurate or misleading, and about the live coverage of a performance at the Glastonbury festival, which featured chants of "death, death to the IDF".

One of the world's most important public broadcasters now faces the task of rebuilding its credibility while dealing with the destabilising effect of losing some of its most senior executives.

There are also signs that the pressure for more heads to roll — including the BBC's chair — will continue.

Laura Tingle is the ABC's global affairs editor and staff-elected ABC board member.