Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, and Deborah Turness, head of BBC News, have resigned following accusations of “serious and systemic” bias in coverage of Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights. Departing, Davie said it was “entirely my decision” but acknowledged the current debate around BBC News contributed to his move.
The resignations come as the BBC prepares to apologise for editing a Trump speech in a Panorama episode. The edit spliced together clips from his 6 January 2021 address, creating the impression he 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.” In fact, the words were taken from sections almost an hour apart.
Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, had condemned the BBC as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine”. She appeared to celebrate the departures on X, while Trump himself posted that “very dishonest people” had “tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election”.
Inside the BBC, sources described a mood of dismay, with one saying: “It feels like a coup – this is the result of a campaign by political enemies of the BBC.” The chairman, Samir Shah, called it a “sad day” and said he understood the “continued pressure” on Davie, who had retained the board’s support throughout.
The allegations were made by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines committee, in a letter passed to the Daily Telegraph. He also criticised BBC Arabic for using contributors with antisemitic views, including one who had called for Jews to be burned “as Hitler did”.
