James O’Brien has perfectly summed up the madness at the heart of the controversy over the BBC’s editing of a Donald Trump speech in a Panorama programme.
On Sunday, director general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness both announced their resignations, following criticism over a the way a Panorama documentary edited Donald Trump’s infamous January 6 speech in 2021.
A leaked 19-page memo on impartiality by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, ruled the broadcaster gave the impression that he told supporters he would march with them to the US Capitol to “fight like hell.”
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The sequence appeared in the BBC documentary Trump: A Second Chance?, which aired the week before last year’s US election.
Trump has subsequently threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn in damages if the corporation doesn’t issue a full apology and retraction of the programme.
The sage has also sparked fresh debates over whether there is institutionalised bias in the BBC.
But on his LBC show, James O’Brien got to the heart of how insane the storm surrounding the corporation is, claiming that this would never have made headlines prior to Trump’s reelection in November last year.
He said it “wouldn’t have occurred to anyone” at the BBC that the political narrative in America would have “shifted so violently” that suddenly parts of the media were arguing Trump hadn’t incited the Capitol riots with his January 2021 speech.
He continued: “It’s a silly edit, but it’s an edit made in the context of not contemplating for a moment that British journalists, never mind Donald Trump’s fan boys and girls, would be queueing up to pretend that his lies were truth.”
“So in that edit, at that moment, it wouldn’t have crossed anybody’s mind that they’d have to defend themselves against accusations of undermining the idea that he incited an insurrection, because he so obviously did.”
On Monday, BBC News revealed that Trump had since sent a letter to the corporation threatening legal action over the programme.
The BBC has confirmed it has received the letter and will respond in due course.
Fox News reports that in the letter to the corporation, Trump demanded a a full and fair retraction of the documentary and any and all other false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about President Trump in as conspicuous a manner as they were originally published,” an immediate apology and compensation.
If the BBC does not comply with this, he has threatened them with a legal action for $1bn in damages.
Trump had already welcomed the news of Davie and Turness’s resignations, after having previously attacked the BBC over the Panorama programme and labelling the journalists involved “corrupt.”
Speaking outside the BBC, Turness dismissed Trump’s comments, along with claims from some that the BBC was institutionally biased.
She said: “I would like to say it has been the privilege of my career to serve as the CEO of BBC News and to work with our brilliant team of journalists.”
“I stepped down over the weekend because the buck stops with me. But I’d like to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased. That’s why it’s the world’s most trusted news provider.”
On President Trump’s comments about the corporation, she said: “Of course our journalists aren’t corrupt. Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality and I will stand by their journalism.”