The BBC is facing an unprecedented crisis over the controversial editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump in a documentary broadcast a year ago. An event which had a total impact on the trust and professional ethics of the prestigious British society, as well as on journalistic practice in general. The resignations of the director general, Tim Davie, and the head of the press division, Deborah Turness, as ultimately responsible for what the UK’s public media company described as an “error of judgement” were not enough to contain an earthquake that has shaken the foundations of an institution whose founding principles establish its vocation as a “public service”.
In the debate over the editing of the US president’s words in the hours before the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol, the most crucial intangible value for the BBC is at stake: its credibility. And to resolve it you need to determine whether it really was a disastrous failure of judgment or overt manipulation. For Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, professor of communications at the University of Copenhagen and former director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, “the program edition Panorama” that gave rise to the scandal “is the kind of issue that worries those who fear that journalism can sometimes become a form of disinformation.”
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: “An example that will last”
Professor Nielsen has been investigating the drift and current challenges of the journalistic profession for years and recalls that “Trump’s support for the insurrectionists of January 6 (2021) is well documented”. However, the editing of the documentary in question “created a materially misleading representation of what he actually said in the speech in question.” Nielsen concludes, consulted by EL PAÍS: “The team involved in the documentary, as well as the people at the BBC who supervised it, have the task of providing the network’s critics and those who distrust the public service media or fear that journalists try to distort the facts instead of reporting them, an example that will last.”
Faced with the threat of a lawsuit for “at least” 1 billion dollars from the president of the United States, the BBC reacted with an image of unity. This Tuesday, Davie appeared on a video call to the entire staff alongside the BBC’s chairman of the board, Samir Shah, to declare himself “passionately proud of this organisation” and say its journalists do “a fantastic job”. Despite admitting “costly mistakes”, his combative tone echoed the idea already expressed 24 hours earlier by the outgoing press chief, who had denied the existence of an “institutional bias”.
This last aspect interests Julie Posetti, director of the Center for Journalism and Democracy at City St George’s at the University of London. Posetti considers the case “an unfortunate error of judgment, but also unnecessary because Trump’s speech needed no editing to convey a message that clearly sounded like incitement to insurrection.” Posetti adds that, however, “a simple production error was transformed into an unjustified accusation of systemic bias and a political campaign to neutralize one of the most credible news organizations in the world.”
Renate Schroeder: “Misleading editing, not institutional prejudice”
Renate Schroeder, director of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), stresses the importance of “using the term ‘misleading editorial’ and not ‘left-wing institutional bias’ to contextualize this case.” For Schroeder “the latter is very dangerous when it comes to the growing attacks against public service media”. He appreciates that “the BBC has acknowledged that the edition of President Trump’s speech is in effect Panorama It was an error of judgment and he has apologised.” He calls for a focus “on the future of the BBC.” And warns that “subsequent government budget cuts have weakened the BBC’s core news output, both in its regions and in its national news and World Service.”
Awaiting a response after Trump gave himself until Friday evening to carry out his threat against the BBC, the corporation’s obvious strategy is to acknowledge the failure in the documentary Trump, second chance? (Trump, second chance?), emitted from space Panorama eight days before the presidential elections in November last year, but at the same time defending his professional conduct. The thesis becomes, in this way, a simple axiom to understand: combining two parts of the president’s speech ―separated by 50 minutes― was a mistake, but not with the intent to “deceive” (misleadaccording to the term chosen by the BBC in its defence).
The edited video showed Trump saying: “We will go to the Capitol and I will be with you and we will fight. We fight like a dice and if you don’t fight like a dice, you will lose your country.” In the actual speech, however, the US president said he would accompany his supporters to “encourage the brave congressmen” and “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard. The reference to “fighting like hell” (“fight like crazy“) was pronounced 50 minutes later, at the end of his speech. Thus set, the American president seemed to make a direct appeal to the altercations, which caused five deaths and more than 300 prisoners.
The BBC admits it was a mistake, but this Tuesday Tim Davie highlighted that this has already cost the departure of two people, including himself, and urged them to “move on”. His message reflects the line already underlined by the company which expressed “apologies” for the “error of judgement”, clarifying however that the aim was to summarize the keys to the message in a “condensed format”, to illustrate what happened on 6 January 2021.
Jeff Jarvis: “Pretext for a right-wing attack”
This is where Jeff Jarvis, an expert on media transformation since the advent of the Internet, considers the editing of the video “unfortunate because he didn’t make it clear that it was an editing.” Author of the influential blog Buzzmachine.com and classic books of the genre such as The end of the mass media (The planet of books), Jarvis instead defends that “this was not in conflict with what Trump intended to do, which was to incite the crowd to anger.” And he concludes that “the most unfortunate thing is that this ruling serves as a pretext for a right-wing attack against the BBC, journalism and freedom of expression”. This “relentless attack on journalism and other social institutions” means for Jarvis that “there will be information chaos until we build new media institutions.”
As reported by the BBC itself in its analysis of the controversy, the management concluded that the cut containing the phrase “fight like hell” should have had some visual effect, such as a flash, to make the audience understand that they were two different parts. Furthermore, the BBC denied that it had deliberately omitted the term “peacefully”. (peacefully, in English) spoken by Trump.
The controversial editing had sparked no complaints after the documentary was broadcast more than a year ago. However, the BBC has already received more than half a thousand after the leak, early last week, of an internal report denouncing the network’s alleged “bias”, not only in its coverage of the US presidential elections but also in that of the Gaza conflict, or in its information on the rights of the transgender community.
For Josep Carles Rius, president of the Consell de la Informació de Catalunya (the only body associated in Spain with the international network of the Press Council which guarantees journalistic ethics), author of books such as Journalism and democracy in the age of emotions (University of Barcelona Editions), The dilemma presented by this case “does not have an easy analysis nor can it be simple”. And he adds: “The journalist has the legitimate right to draw conclusions from the facts, but in reporting the facts we must be careful not to distort reality. Trump’s statements used in the editing of the documentary are literal, but those under dispute were uttered at the beginning and end of a speech and the result can give an idea that distorts their meaning.”
The majority opinion, says Rius, “is that that speech motivated the assault on the Capitol, that the connection existed and so the American justice system dealt with it. It was therefore legitimate to report both events in the report, but the complementary force of the speech edition amplified the first. It would have been more in line with ethical criteria if the journalist had supported the connection without the need to join two parts of a speech.”
Rigor, credibility and trust
The accusation of systemic bias goes right to the heart of what the BBC aspires to represent: rigor, credibility and trust; and the resignations of Davie and Turness, for the moment, have not been enough to restore the reputation of an institution whose neutrality remains in the eye of the storm, especially in the current climate of gradual polarization.
The dome of Panorama, For his part, he remains in office for the moment. Trump, second chance? It had been commissioned from the independent production company October Films and, since the controversy broke out, the former editors of Space, one of the BBC’s references, have suggested that extremely sensitive products, with a high political content, should be invoiced by the BBC and not commissioned to external companies. According to the most recent data from YouGov, the BBC was the most trusted British media outlet in June 2025, followed by the daily Financial times.
As a result, it finds itself facing a difficult succession, just as the government is preparing to review the founding statutes. (real paper, in English), once the current decade ends in 2027. In the spotlight is the financing model, through a compulsory license that families pay every year, currently set at 174.5 pounds (around 200 euros), a direct subsidy to citizens which entails an immense responsibility.
On Tuesday, the Culture Secretary promised to present her proposals shortly, but, in an appearance in the British Parliament, she struck a conciliatory tone towards an institution that she said, in an era of “blurred lines” between fact and opinion, “stands out from the rest”. “He represents us all,” Lisa Nandy said in the House of Commons, where, in the face of recent pressure, she warned of the difference between “making serious allegations” and “attacking at length” a sector of British politics. Given this “light” role that Nandy described of the BBC, mistakes are paid dearly and crises are managed in front of the public eye, with coverage like the current one, in which British society itself is judge and party.”
