The BBC has formally apologised to U.S. President Donald Trump after he claimed he had an “obligation” to sue the broadcaster for the way his January 6 speech was edited in a Panorama documentary.
Trump had demanded a full retraction, an immediate apology, and compensation, arguing that the programme misleadingly portrayed him as encouraging violence ahead of the Capitol riot. The broadcaster was given until tomorrow to respond to the President’s $1 billion legal threat following criticism that the edit misled viewers.
In a statement released on Friday, the BBC admitted the edit was an “error of judgment” and confirmed that the programme would “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms.” However, the organisation added that “while the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”
The episode, Trump: A Second Chance?, has since been removed from the BBC website, and a retraction was published on Thursday evening.
The statement read: “This programme was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s 6th January 2021 speech was edited.
“During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech.
“However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.”
Responding to the controversy earlier this week, Trump said: “I guess I have to [sue]. Why not? They defrauded the public, and they’ve admitted it. This is within one of our great allies, supposedly our great ally.
“That’s a pretty sad event. They actually changed my January 6 speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical.”
Referencing the departure of director-general Tim Davie over the uproar, Trump added: “They showed me the results of how they butchered it up. It was very dishonest and the head man quit and a lot of the other people quit.”
Trump also told Fox News: “I think I have an obligation to [sue] because you can’t allow people to do that.”
The President had warned that he would be “left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights… including by filing legal action for no less than 1,000,000,000 dollars [£760 million] in damages,” if the BBC failed to act.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt weighed in on the matter, calling the corporation a “Leftist propaganda machine.” She added that it was “unfortunate” the broadcaster is funded by British taxpayers and said the legal action is expected to move forward.
BBC chairman Samir Shah has also apologised for the “error of judgment” behind the edit, which was first broadcast in October last year and later contributed to the resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, chief executive of news.
