The head of the BBC and its CEO of news resigned Sunday after criticism of the broadcaster’s editing of a speech by President Trump.
The BBC said Director-General Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness both announced their resignation on Sunday.
Britain’s public broadcaster has been criticized for the way it edited a speech Mr. Trump made on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington.
Portions of the speech were included in a documentary on its high-profile Panorama program and critics said they had been misleadingly edited, missing out a section where Mr. Trump said that he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Hannah McKay / AP
In a letter to staff, Davie said quitting the job after five years “is entirely my decision.”
“Overall, the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” Davie said.
He said that he was “working through exact timings with the Board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months.”
Turness said that the controversy about the Trump documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love. As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.”
“While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong,” she added.
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In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Mr. Trump thanked 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!” he said.
Pressure on the broadcaster’s top executives has been growing since Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper published parts of a dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines.
As well as the edit of Mr. Trump, the dossier criticized the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns about alleged anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service.
Lisa Nandy, the United Kingdom’s culture secretary, thanked Davie “for his service to public broadcasting over the years.”
“He has led the BBC through a period of significant change and helped the organisation to grip the challenges it has faced in recent years,” she said in a statement on X. “Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world.”
The BBC faces greater scrutiny than other broadcasters — and criticism from its commercial rivals — because of its status as a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by all households with a television.
It is also bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial in its output, and critics are quick to point out when they think it has failed
