BBC apologises to Trump over speech edit but rejects defamation claim

The British Broadcasting Corporation sent a personal apology to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday but said there was no legal basis for him to sue the public broadcaster over a documentary his lawyers called defamatory.

The documentary, which aired on the BBC’s “Panorama” news programme just before the U.S. presidential election in 2024, spliced together three parts of Trump’s speech on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol. The edit created the impression he had called for violence.

“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,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

Lawyers for the U.S. president threatened on Sunday to sue the BBC for damages of up to $1 billion unless it withdrew the documentary, apologised to the president and compensated him for “financial and reputational harm.”

By asserting that Trump’s defamation case lacks merit, the BBC effectively signaled that it believes his claim for financial damages is equally untenable. But the broadcaster did not directly address Trump’s financial demand.

In its statement, the BBC said Chair Samir Shah on Thursday “sent a personal letter to the White House making clear that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit.” Shah earlier in the week apologised to a British parliamentary oversight committee and said the edit was “an error of judgement.”

In the Thursday statement, the BBC added that it has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any of its platforms.

Earlier on Thursday, the BBC said it was looking into fresh allegations, published in The Telegraph newspaper, over the editing by another of its programmes, “Newsnight,” of the same speech.

The BBC has been thrown into its biggest crisis in decades after two senior executives resigned amid allegations of bias, including about the edit of Trump’s speech. The claims came to light because of a leaked report by a BBC standards official.

Founded in 1922 and funded largely by a licence fee paid by TV-watching Britons, the BBC is without a permanent leader as the government weighs how it should be funded in the future.

It is a vital instrument of Britain’s “soft power” globally, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he believed in a “strong and independent” BBC on Wednesday.

Source: Reuters 

--Agencies