BBC apologises to Donald Trump over documentary edit, rejects compensation claim
The BBC has apologised to Donald Trump over its edit of a speech in a Panorama episode. (AP: Frank Augstein)
In short:
The BBC apologises to US President Donald Trump over a "misleading" edit in one its flagship programs but rejects his demands for compensation.
Mr Trump's lawyers threatened to sue the British broadcaster for $US1 billion unless it issued a retraction, apologised and compensated him.
The controversy, which prompted the BBC's top bosses to quit, surrounds the BBC's edit of a speech he gave ahead of the January 6 Capitol riots.
The BBC has apologised to US President Donald Trump for a Panorama episode that spliced together parts of a speech he gave on January 6, 2021, but rejected his demands for compensation.
The corporation also said it would not show the programme again.
Lawyers for Mr Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) in damages unless the corporation issued a retraction, apologised and compensated him.
The BBC's legal team has responded to Mr Trump's lawyers and its chair, Samir Shah, has personally written to the US president to apologise.
"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 wrote in a retraction.
Donald Trump's lawyers have threatened to sue the BBC for $US1 billion over the edit of a "salacious" documentary. (Reuters: Jonathan Ernst)
The BBC has reported Mr Shah's letter to the White House made it clear to the US president that "he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president's speech on 6 January 2021".
"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," a BBC spokesperson said to the broadcaster.
The apology comes after a second similarly edited clip, broadcast on Newsnight in 2022, was revealed by the Daily Telegraph.
The fallout from the scandal led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness.
The dispute was started by an edition of the BBC's flagship current affairs series Panorama, titled "Trump: A Second Chance?" and broadcast days before the 2024 US presidential election.
The criticism surrounds the BBC's edit of a speech Donald Trump delivered before protesters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. (Reuters: Leah Millis)
The third-party production company that made the film joined three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote of Mr Trump urging supporters to march with him to the US Capitol and "fight like hell".
Among the parts cut was a section in which Mr Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Mr Davie and Ms Turness resigned on Sunday, local time, saying the scandal was damaging the BBC.
Mr Trump, a frequent critic of media outlets that interrogate his administration and personal affairs, described the BBC as "a terrible thing for democracy" and accused it of having "corrupt journalists".
The letter from Mr Trump's lawyer demanded an apology to the president and a "full and fair" retraction of the documentary along with other "false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading or inflammatory statements" about him.
It also said the US president should be "appropriately" compensated for "overwhelming financial and reputational harm".
Legal experts have said that Mr Trump would face challenges taking the case to court, but could use the mistake to try leverage a payout.
Tim Davie conceded the edit in the Panorama program was "misleading". (Reuters: Hannah McKay)
Pressure on the broadcaster's top executives has been growing since The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK published parts of a dossier compiled by Michael Prescott who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines.
As well as the Trump edit, the dossier criticised the BBC's coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israeli bias in the BBC's Arabic service.
The BBC faces greater scrutiny than other broadcasters — and criticism from its commercial rivals — because of its status as a national institution funded through an annual licence fee of $354 paid by all households with a television.
ABC/AP