What are the key claims made in the leaked internal BBC memo?

(The date of the 7 October attack has been added to the 8th paragraph)

LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC’s chief executive and news director resigned on Sunday following mounting accusations of editorial bias against the British broadcaster, including its editing of a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The publicly funded broadcaster faces increasing scrutiny after the Daily Telegraph published details of an internal memo leaked by a former standards adviser.‌ The report highlighted shortcomings in the BBC’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, transgender issues and Trump’s remarks.

Key findings in a memo written by Michael Prescott to the BBC’s Broadcasting Guidelines and Standards Board include:

TRUMP PROGRAM

Prescott appeared on the BBC’s flagship Panorama programme, “Trump: Second Chance?”, broadcast a week before the US election. He said the print edition “seemed to take a distinctly anti-Trump stance,” noting that Trump’s critics far outnumber his supporters.

He said the program created the impression that Trump incited the Capitol Hill riot in January 2021 by combining two separate quotes from one of Trump’s speeches.

Trump was shown telling supporters in a different part of his speech that “we’re going to march on the Capitol” and “fight like hell.” In fact, he said his supporters would “support our brave senators, congressmen, and women.”

ISRAEL-HAMAS NEWS

Prescott noted that many contributors to the BBC’s Arabic service selectively reported stories critical of Israel.

In one instance, the BBC’s main English-language news site published 19 separate articles about hostages taken by Hamas on the day of the attack on October 7, 2023, while the BBC published no articles in Arabic. In contrast, every article critical of Israel on the BBC News website also appeared on BBC Arabic.

The note also emphasized that although BBC Arabic generally broadcast the same news as the BBC’s English website, there were “significant differences in tone, headlines and emphasis” and that the news was generally more critical of Israel.

Prescott also criticized the BBC for allegedly misreporting the proportion of Palestinian women and children killed in Israeli military operations and misrepresenting the likelihood of children facing starvation under an Israeli aid blockade.

TRANSGENDER SCOPE

Prescott claimed that stories that raise “difficult questions” about transgender issues are often overlooked, even when widely reported and discussed by other media outlets. He also noted that some features present the transgender experience in an overly one-sided way, lacking sufficient balance and objectivity.

The memo also said the BBC failed to cover some stories, including a case in which a group of nurses sued their employers for allowing biological males to use their changing rooms.

IMMIGRATION ISSUES AND HISTORIANS

Prescott said the BBC sent very few push notifications about illegal immigrants or asylum seekers to its 7 million news app users, but less important stories received widespread coverage.

The statement also said the producers of four historical BBC programs preferred non-specialist academics who produced oversimplified and distorted narratives about British colonialism, “slavery and their legacies”, offering soundbites about racism and prejudice.

RACISM

Prescott wrote in his memo that the BBC had “fallen too easily into broadcasting poorly researched material that points to issues of racism when nothing is there”. He cited a report that claimed people living in areas with high proportions of ethnic minority residents pay more for car insurance, even though road accident and crime rates are similar.

He noted that the report and commentary ignored other factors that could affect insurance costs, relied on outdated and inappropriate data, and featured only one guest supporting the claim. ‌The Association of British Insurers refused to attend the meeting and its statement, which provided important context, was selectively quoted. The report was later removed.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Paul Sandle and Conor Humphries)