The report that criticised Panorama for a “misleading” edit of a Donald Trump speech itself contained misleading quotes from the president.
The BBC has been at the centre of a storm this week after a leaked memo on impartiality by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, sparked the resignation of director general Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Furness.
The 19-page memo ruled the broadcaster gave the impression that he told supporters he would march with them to the US Capitol to “fight like hell” through the way they spliced together two parts of his infamous January 6 speech.
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However, it turns out that Prescott’s memo itself also contains doctored quotes from the president, making his comments seem more benign than they actually were.
The New World reports that the way Prescott used Trump’s quotes in the report was misleading.
In the document, Prescott writes: “Fifteen minutes into the speech, what Trump actually said: ‘We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.’ It was completely misleading to edit the clip in the way Panorama aired it.”
But these were not Trump’s exact quotes, with Prescott not making clear that he had actually abridged the quote.
Trump’s full words were as follows: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.
“Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Prescott clearly cut out entire sentences that show just how threatening and violent Trump’s words were.
The leaked memo has sparked a right-wing pile on on the BBC, along with threats from the president to sue the corporation from $1bn.