BBC apologises to Trump over documentary, says no basis for defamation claim

LONDON: The BBC has apologised to US President Donald Trump for a Panorama episode that edited parts of his January 6 2021 speech together, but rejected his demands for compensation, the broadcaster said.

The corporation said the edit had given “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action” and said it would not show the 2024 programme again.

Trump has threatned to sue for one billion US dollars in damages unless the corporation issues a retraction of the October 2024 documentary, apologises and compensates him.

The scandal led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness. on Sunday.

A second misleading edit from a 2022 Newsnight broadcast surfaced hours before the apology, adding to scrutiny.

A report by CNN stated that a BBC spokesperson said that lawyers for the broadcaster had written to Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday.

“BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President (Donald) Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the program,” the spokesperson said as quoted by CNN.

The spokesperson said the BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any BBC platforms while rejecting that it was defamatory.

The BBC had previously apologised for an error of judgment in the documentary, titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” that was broadcast days before the 2024 presidential election, which Trump won, CNN said.

The documentary spliced together three quotes from two sections of a speech Trump delivered on January 6, 2021. However, the two sections of the speech were delivered almost an hour apart.

Critics argued that the documentary edited the separate lines into what appeared to be one quote, in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell”, Al Jazeera reported.

Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully, the publication reported.

Following Trump’s speech, thousands of his supporters would march on the US Capitol and storm the building, in an apparent attempt to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Trump said the British broadcaster had “butchered” his “beautiful” and “calming” speech and “made it sound radical.”

Calling his speech delivered in January 2021, “good” and “perfect”, the US President had, in a previous post on Truth Social, called the action “a terrible thing for democracy”.

He said, “The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught “doctoring” my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th. Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt “Journalists.” These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!” (ANI)