BBC leaders have been the target of controversy over a documentary about Donald Trump and accusations of bias and protests that have also come directly from the White House. A formal response to the storm that has been brewing for days is expected in the next few hours, with the intervention announced by the director general and CEO of BBC News: both, Tim Davi and Deborah Turness, have shortened the clock by giving the broadcaster the green light to circulate their respective resignation notes: “There was a mistake” they admitted, taking primary responsibility for it, but they did not compromise on the BBC’s quality and reliability: “The allegations of bias are false.”
The subject of these allegations was a documentary broadcast by the BBC’s flagship investigative program Panorama, in which several images of US President Donald Trump’s speech were edited in a misleading manner. Last Tuesday, conservative newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported on internal BBC documents referring to the possibility that in the documentary ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’, broadcast last year and made for the BBC by an independent production company, he had edited two parts of Trump’s speech so that the tycoon appeared to explicitly encourage the siege on Capitol Hill in January 2021 by telling his supporters that he would march with them to the Capitol to “fight like the devil.”
The following day, the opposition Conservative Party launched an attack, with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch particularly harsh, attributing “serious and systematic” editorial bias to BBC leaders, speaking of “shocking revelations” and stating that for facts so serious “it would be necessary to make heads spin”.
Echoes of the controversy did not take long to cross the Atlantic and reach the White House which, when questioned by the Telegraph, denounced the BBC as a “left-wing propaganda machine”. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt accused the BBC of being “intentionally dishonest” in its depiction of the Capitol Hill insurrection in the documentary. “The deliberately dishonest and selectively edited BBC clip is further proof that this is 100% fake news,” Leavitt said. And he added: UK taxpayers are “forced to foot the bill for the left-wing propaganda machine”.
However, it is not just the case of the documentary about Trump that has called the British broadcaster’s work into question in recent months: questions have been raised over coverage of the war in Gaza by BBC Arab, an Arabic language channel, which allegedly “minimised Israel’s suffering” and portrayed the Jewish state “as an aggressor” according to criticism leveled at the broadcaster. Moreover, in recent months, orders to “clarify things” have even come from Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer who has asked for an explanation after the BBC failed to stop a live broadcast of the hugely popular Glastonbury music festival when during its performance rap duo Bob Vylan uttered anti-Israel phrases from the stage. An apology and admission of guilt followed from the broadcaster who stated that he was “sorry” for what had happened. The Tories have repeatedly targeted the public broadcaster in the past, particularly when Boris Johnson was prime minister, and have consistently accused the broadcaster of not respecting the principle of neutrality. Now UK Reform leader Nigel Farage – who in recent months has become a much-feared political opponent of both Labor and the Conservatives – has declared that the resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness must be “the start of a radical change” at the BBC. “This is the BBC’s last chance. If they don’t do the right thing, many people will refuse to pay the license fee,” he said.
Meanwhile, the White House rejoiced: “Struck and sunk” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in X in the evening, publishing screenshots of the latest developments.
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