“There was a mistake and I have to take responsibility for that mistake” : BBC Director General Tim Davie, as well as chief information officer Deborah Turness, announced on Sunday, November 9, that they would resign, British public media reported. This announcement came after criticism following the broadcast of a documentary that combined two of Donald Trump’s sentences to give the impression that he explicitly encouraged the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021.
“This is a sad day for the BBC, Tim has been an outstanding Director General over the last five years”but he was confronted with “constant pressure (…) Who guided him to take this decision?” to resign, BBC chairman Samir Shah said in a statement.
The affair was exposed by a conservative newspaper Daily Telegraph Tuesday, concerns a documentary from the BBC news magazine “Panorama”, which was broadcast a week before the United States presidential election on November 5, 2024.
The BBC was accused of editing a separate clip of Donald Trump’s speech in such a way that it appeared he told his supporters he would march with them to the Capitol to protest. “beat with all my might”. In full sentences he said: “We will march to the Capitol and we will support our brave senators and representatives in Congress. » Expression “fight as hard as you can” according to other sections.
“Very serious”
Donald Trump, who was later defeated in the election by Democrat Joe Biden, but claimed otherwise, delivered this speech on January 6, 2021, the day of the attack on his Congressional seat in Washington by hundreds of his supporters.
British Minister of Culture, Lisa Nandy, assessed, on Sunday, “very serious” accusations leveled against the BBC for conveying the statement in a misleading manner. The minister, speaking on the BBC News television channel, said he had done just that “said this week” with the president of the public audiovisual group, Samir Shah, having to explain himself to a parliamentary committee on Monday. According to several media outlets, including the BBC itself, the response will include an apology from the official.
Lisa Nandy also emphasized that it was not a question “Not just from the Panorama program, although that is very serious, but from a series of very serious allegations, the most serious of which is systemic bias in the way the BBC covers difficult subjects.”. In a message announcing his decision to resign to his colleagues which was conveyed by the BBC, Tim Davie admitted this “The current debate around BBC news has contributed to this (he) decision”.
