The BBC’s chair has apologised for an “error of judgment” in the way a Panorama documentary portrayed a speech by Donald Trump, after criticism of the edit forced the resignation of two of its most senior executives.
Samir Shah said the BBC had mishandled an internal review of the matter but defended the corporation against claims it had buried stories or done nothing to address claims of bias, which he said were “simply not true”.
In a letter to Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the culture and media select committee, Shah wrote that the BBC had received more than 500 complaints since the matter was highlighted in a critical memo by a former adviser.
He wrote he was “absolutely clear that the BBC must champion impartiality” and added: “We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”
Shah’s letter was published on Monday, hours after the BBC’s director-general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness, quit over the scandal, which attracted Trump’s attention and sparked fears of recriminations against BBC journalists in the US. Trump wrote to the BBC on Monday threatening legal action. A BBC spokesperson said: “We will review the letter and respond directly in due course.”
The resignations of two of the BBC’s most senior figures followed days of criticism from the White House and rightwing commentators in the UK prompted by claims in a leaked memo published by the Daily Telegraph.
Trump and his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, publicly celebrated the resignations of Davie and Turness. Turness said she “stepped down over the weekend because the buck stops with me”, but stressed that “BBC News is not institutionally biased”.
In response to the crisis, Keir Starmer’s spokesperson said No 10 believed the BBC was neither corrupt nor institutionally biased but that it was right senior leaders had taken responsibility for mistakes.
“We support a strong, independent BBC, and in an age of disinformation, the argument for a robust, impartial British news service is stronger than ever, but it’s important that trust is maintained and that errors are corrected,” the spokesperson said.
Asked if the corporation was under pressure from rightwing attacks, the spokesperson said only that it was important to maintain trust. “Tim Davie and Deborah Turness have both taken responsibility for the mistakes. It is right we now continue to support the BBC, as an important national institution, and manage the transition,” he said.
David Yelland, who edited the Sun from 1998 to 2003 and now presents a BBC podcast, told Radio 4’s Today programme that the departures were “a coup” orchestrated from the inside, and that Davies and Turness had been were systematically undermined by people close to the BBC board over a lengthy period.
Yelland’s criticisms echoed a mood of dismay inside within BBC News, with one source saying on Sunday night: “It feels like a coup. This is the result of a campaign by political enemies of the BBC.”
The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, wrote in a letter to Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage on Monday that it was in Britain’s national interest to defend the BBC from foreign interference.
“It should be extremely concerning to us all to see the President of the United States pressuring the BBC over its leadership and attacking its journalists as corrupt,” Davey wrote. “It should not be up to foreign powers to dictate where the British people get their news from. We must stand united to defend our democracy from foreign interference like this – even when it comes from a crucial ally.”
The crisis was triggered by the leaked findings of a former independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee, Michael Prescott, who left his role in the summer.
In his letter, Shah said that Prescott’s memo was a “partial” and “personal” account of BBC discussions and did not reflect a full picture of the internal discussions and decisions taken.
Prescott’s memo criticised the editing of a speech by Trump in an episode of Panorama, which he argued made it appear that Trump had encouraged the US Capitol attack. Two sections of the speech that were spliced together were in fact delivered an hour apart, and the edit did not note that Trump had also said he wanted his supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Shah said the issue was “considered and discussed as part of a wider review of the BBC’s US election coverage” at an earlier stage, “given it had not attracted significant audience feedback and had been transmitted before the US election”. He said the points raised by this review were relayed to the Panorama team.
But he added that “with hindsight, it would have been better to take more formal action” involving those who made decisions about the documentary.
Shah wrote he had met with Prescott and discussed next steps, but that his memo was “his personal account of the meetings at which he was present” and that it did not “represent a full picture of the discussions, decisions, and actions that were taken”.
At a press conference in Westminster on Monday, Farage claimed that the BBC had been “institutionally biased for decades” and that Davie should be replaced by “somebody from the private sector who has gone into a failing organisation, and has not just turned round the profitability but the culture”.
He accused the corporation of “election interference” and called for it to be slimmed down and forced to compete with commercial providers for subscriptions.
