BBC should not pay Trump any money, says former BBC director general | BBC
Former BBC director-general Tony Hall has said the BBC should not be paying any money to Donald Trump.
The US president said he plans to sue the BBC for up to $5bn (£3.8bn) despite receiving the apology he demanded for the misleading Panorama edit of his January 6 speech.
Speaking to BBC One with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Hall said this move should be blocked if Trump continues his threats. “NO, [it] “I don’t think we should accept any money being paid to Donald Trump,” he said. You’re talking about license fee payers’ money, you’re talking about public money. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
Hall, who stepped down as director general in 2020 after seven years in the role, called the video editing a “serious mistake” and said it should have been “noticed much earlier in the whole process.” But he said he was also concerned that the “hard work, diligence and belief in impartiality” of BBC journalists was being lost in the debate.
Last year, a row over an episode of Panorama about the 2021 Capitol riot led to accusations of bias at the broadcaster and the resignation of two of the BBC’s most senior executives: director general Tim Davie; and Deborah Turness, managing director of news.
On Thursday, reports said the BBC faced separate accusations that it misled viewers about Trump’s 2021 Capitol speech more than two years before the Panorama edit was released.
In an episode broadcast in June 2022, Newsnight reportedly played an edited version of his speech, similar to that used on the Panorama programme. A BBC spokesman said of the new allegations on the Telegraph’s Daily T podcast: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now reviewing it.”
The BBC, which agreed not to show the Panorama edition again, sent an apology to Trump on Thursday but said it had no legal basis to sue the public broadcaster over a documentary its lawyers described as defamatory. On Friday evening, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “We’ll probably sue them next week for between $1 billion and $5 billion. We have to do it.”
BBC chief Samir Shah sent a personal apology to the White House on Thursday, telling lawmakers the regulation was “an error of judgement.” The following day, culture minister Lisa Nandy said the apology was “justified and necessary”.
Pandemonium erupted at the BBC after a leaked internal memo a week ago highlighted misleading editing and a clip resurfaced in which the US president said: “We’ll march on the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we’ll fight. We’ll fight like hell.”
The verbatim quote from the speech was: “We will march to the Capitol and applaud our brave senators, congressmen, and women.” More than 50 minutes later, Trump added: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In an interview with GB News on Friday, Trump said the regulation was “impossible to believe”. He added: “I made a nice statement and they turned it into a not nice statement. Fake news was a great term, but it’s not strong enough. This is beyond fake, this is corruption.”
