BBC director-general and news boss resign amid Donald Trump ‘fake news’ scandal
“Leaders in public life need to be fully accountable, and that’s why I’m resigning. While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear that recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are false.”
Stating that the weekend was spent with intense discussions, Turness said that he offered his resignation to Davie on Saturday night, London time.
BBC news chief Deborah Turness also resigned due to the growing scandal.Credit: Getty Images
Reports have also emerged that BBC chief Samir Shah plans to issue an apology about the Trump video on Monday.
The Trump documentary was broadcast on the BBC on October 28 last year – a week before the US presidential election – but criticism of its editing only emerged last week. Telegram London published a leaked review.
Trump responded to the BBC resignations by berating the broadcaster and saying the channel tried to influence last November’s election.
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He posted on Truth Social: “THE BEST people at the BBC, including TIM DAVIE and THE BOSS, are all resigning/fired because they were caught ‘editing’ my very good (EXCELLENT!) speech on 6 January.”
“Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt “Journalists”. They are very dishonorable people trying to tip the scales of the Presidential election.
“After all, they come from a Foreign Land that many consider to be our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”
British Culture Minister Lisa Nandy thanked Davie for his services by making a statement about X, emphasizing trust.
“Now more than ever, the need for trustworthy news and high-quality programming is crucial to our democratic and cultural life and our place in the world,” he said.
The storm over the BBC’s leadership and culture has centered on edited video from a documentary about the US president released last year, including a segment about his speech to supporters at the January 6 protests in early 2021.
The video shows Trump urging his supporters to go to the Capitol to show they believe last November’s election was stolen.
“We’re going to march to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you. And we’re fighting. We’re fighting like crazy,” Trump said in the video published on BBC.
However, the full address given that day did not indicate that these words were spoken in this way.
In the documentary prepared by Ekim Films for the BBC, two different explanations were used in Trump’s speech and they were combined.
The national broadcaster is responsible for what is broadcast, although it is not made by BBC news reporters.
London Telegram A dossier on the BBC’s biases, prepared by a former editorial adviser to the BBC editorial guidelines and standards committee, revealed concerns about the edited video.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized the BBC in a statement released on Saturday, increasing political pressure in Britain to apologize for the edit and hold senior staff accountable.
“This deliberately dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is proof that this is completely, 100 per cent fake news and is no longer worth the time of the UK’s great public on their television screens,” Leavitt said.
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