The BBC is planning to apologize after being accused of selectively editing Donald Trump‘s January 6 speech to make it appear as if the president was encouraging the 2021 Capitol riot.
On Monday, chair Samir Shah will write to UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee to admit that a 2024 BBC Panorama film should not have altered Trump’s speech in the way it did. The change was attacked as “dishonest” by the White House.
Shah is expected to tell lawmakers that the BBC has reviewed the Trump edit again in light of audience complaints in recent days, Deadline understands. Shah is expected to acknowledge that Panorama could have been clearer that Trump’s speech was changed, but he will say there was no intention to mislead viewers.
The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph first reported on Shah’s planned apology, which comes after a week of headlines about the Trump edit and the BBC’s reporting on Gaza and transgender rights.
The concerns originated in an excoriating leaked memo attacking BBC News output. Obtained by The Daily Telegraph, the document was penned by Michael Prescott, who was an external adviser to the BBC board’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee until June.
Lisa Nandy, the UK culture secretary, became the latest voice of disapproval. Appearing on BBC show Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Nandy said the edit was “incredibly serious.”
Nandy said she had held “too many” conversations with BBC leaders over the past year regarding editorial standards. The Labour minister said she was confident Shah and BBC director general Tim Davie were gripping the Trump matter, but she questioned why issues keep occurring.
“What tends to happen at the BBC is that decisions about editorial standards, editorial guidelines, the sort of language that is used in reporting, is entirely inconsistent,” she said. “It doesn’t always meet the highest standards. It’s not always well thought through, and often it’s left to individual journalists or news readers to make decisions.”
The Trump edit, which was made in October Films-produced Trump: A Second Chance?, prompted fury in the White House, though the president himself has yet to publicly remark on the issue.
Karoline Leavitt
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, told the Telegraph newspaper: “This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100% fake news that should no longer be worth the time on the television screens of the great people of the United Kingdom.”
Shah’s apology will be the first time a senior BBC figure speaks out on the issue, though Deadline revealed that BBC News CEO Deborah Turness emailed staff admitting it had been a “difficult” week.
The incident is awkward for Shah, Davie, and Turness because they sit on the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee, where Prescott originally raised his concerns months ago. They did not consider the matter serious enough to correct the Panorama documentary, meaning three of the corporation’s most senior figures are complicit in the inaction.
In the Panorama documentary, Trump appears to say: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
He actually said: “We’re gonna walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re gonna walk down, we’re gonna walk down any one you want but I think right here, we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen.”
Some 54 minutes later, when Trump was talking about the U.S. election being “corrupt,” he said: “Something’s wrong here, something’s really wrong, can’t have happened, and we fight. We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
Nick Robinson, the seasoned presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today show, referenced the story live on-air on Saturday, telling listeners: “It’s clear that there is a genuine concern about editorial standards and mistakes. There is also a political campaign by people who want to destroy the organisation … Both things are happening at the same time.”
