The BBC has apologised to Donald Trump over the editing of a Panorama documentary that led to the resignation of its director general, Tim Davie, and the BBC News chief, Deborah Turness. However, the corporation has rejected his demands for compensation, after lawyers for Trump threatened to sue for $1bn (£760m) in damages unless the BBC issued a retraction, apologised and settled with him.
“Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday,” a BBC spokesperson said. “BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme. The BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary Trump: A Second Chance? on any BBC platforms. 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 BBC has been considering how to respond to the legal threat since Trump’s angry reaction to the editing of the programme. However, it is thought that the BBC has also been advised that it has a strong legal case. It remains to be seen how Trump will now respond.
It comes after the BBC concluded there was no reason not to apologise more personally to President Trump, given Shah had already said sorry for the edit and described it as giving the impression “of a direct call for violent action”. The corporation is already reeling from the resignations of Davie and Turness, which followed the splicing together of the Trump speech in an edition of Panorama last year.
The programme was broadcast a week before the US election. The spliced clip suggested that Trump told the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.” The words were taken from sections of his speech almost an hour apart. Concerns about the Panorama cut were raised in a memo by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee.
Since the Panorama edit was revealed, BBC’s Newsnight was also accused of editing the same Trump speech in a way that made it appear he made a more explicit call for violent protest before the Capitol riots. The Telegraph said it had found an edition of Newsnight from 2022 that contained a splicing together of the speech in a similar way. A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”
