Revealed: The cold fury that erupted as BBC board turned on news boss. But will hurricane Deborah take her revenge?

The tension in the air was almost palpable when Deborah Turness entered the wood-paneled boardroom on the third floor of BBC Broadcasting House.

The company’s first director general of news and current affairs has been determined to take the lead after four days in which damaging accusations of serious and systemic bias were leveled at the BBC, including the doctoring of a key speech by Donald Trump.

However, the board meeting held on Thursday afternoon did not go as planned. Quite the opposite. From the start, until Sunday evening, there was open hostility towards Turness among the 12-man board, which included then-managing director Tim Davie.

Turness came out with a brief statement two days ago, prepared in consultation with his closest advisers, acknowledging that the editing of Trump’s speech had been grossly mishandled.

A senior source says: ‘This statement was made in an 11-second clip on an otherwise good Panorama program to inform the public and staff that we had got it wrong. ‘It was also vital that we were seen to be defending our journalism for staff who were stunned after days of criticism.’

His attempted mea culpa to the BBC board failed. So is the attempt by the fast-talking Turness, who looks much younger than his 58 years, to claim that everything would be fine if a white flash had not been dropped to make it clear to the audience that there were two different parts of the conversation.

He was already skating on thin ice, but at this point Turness began to sink below the surface.

Ms Turness also reacted to Donald Trump’s claim that the company was ‘corrupt’

The board wasn’t having it. One BBC director after another attacked him, with the majority arguing that the Trump edit was designed to deceive the audience.

And that wasn’t their only criticism. Turness has also come under heavy criticism for another perceived failure of his department, highlighted in the extraordinary 19-page report leaked last week by the company’s former independent adviser to the Broadcasting Guidelines and Standards Board, with such devastating consequences.

The dossier claimed that a very powerful ‘LGBT desk’ had the power to veto stories that challenged its dogmatic views on gender and trans ideology. This clearly irritated the board and another source at the meeting told me: ‘There was no shouting but there was coldly veiled anger and Deborah Turness was shattered.’

One of his biggest critics was Sir Robbie Gibb, the BBC’s former Westminster editor, who left the company in 2017 to become No 10 Theresa May’s communications chief.

In 2021, Boris Johnson joined the BBC board while he was prime minister, and it was Boris who brought matters to a head at the weekend by using his Saturday column in the Daily Mail to announce that he would cut the £174.50 annual license fee unless the director-general breaks his silence on the Trump row or resigns.

After nearly four decades in broadcasting, including eight years as chairman of NBC News in New York, Turness is a tough operator who even his critics suggest is worth his £400,000 BBC salary. But he is also clearly a master of understatement, having confided to colleagues after the bruising board meeting: ‘It didn’t go that well.’

Director-general Tim Davie left the BBC on Sunday after five years in the corporation’s most senior role

BBC chief Samir Shah (above) rejects claims of systematic bias at the BBC

After returning to his ground-floor office and assessing his situation, I heard Turness was initially determined to ride out the storm.

But he was becoming increasingly exasperated by the BBC management’s decision to abide by what appeared to be a growing number of Trappist vows of silence; when it comes to the increasing number of bias allegations leveled against him.

A senior company executive says: ‘This is classic BBC. Bury your head in the sand, ignore the criticism and hope it will all work out, which never happens. But Deborah wanted to fight back because this wasn’t just about Trump’s editing, she wanted to take the charge of institutional bias in this dossier that cuts to the heart of everything she does.

‘He was angry that no one was fighting for the 6,000 or so journalists producing material 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in 43 languages, on ten channels. So of course mistakes are made.’

The day after the board meeting, the crisis worsened. Israeli embassy criticizes BBC for ‘deeply flawed’ reporting; this attack reflected their earlier concerns about bias. And both Tory and Reform UK politicians have threatened to force a review of the company’s finances.

In a letter to staff, an unrepentant Turness spoke of the ‘difficult week’ she had experienced as the BBC reported in ‘some quarters’; His enemies argued that it showed he had misjudged the mood of the country.

This siege mentality was exacerbated on Friday evening – just hours after Turness sent the staff letter – when the Trump White House took action, accusing the BBC of being a ‘Left propaganda organisation’ spreading ‘fake news’.

This led to an extraordinary intervention by Nick Robinson, presenter of Radio 4’s flagship Today programme; He used his platform to launch a highly unorthodox monologue on his Saturday morning show.

BBC star Nick Robinson gave a monologue on Radio 4’s Today Program on Saturday following the incident.

After admitting there were concerns about editorial errors at the BBC, he said live: ‘There is also a political campaign going on by people who want to destroy the organization you are listening to at the moment.’

But despite the growing anger, the BBC’s senior executives refused to immediately respond to the corporation’s critics; They simply announced that their side of the story would come in the form of a detailed letter from the BBC’s affable chairman, Samir Shah, to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

Governors had not planned to release the letter until earlier this week, but it was sent yesterday following the shocking resignations on Sunday night.

One experienced BBC executive said the BBC board should follow Turness’s advice. ‘He had a pithy statement that he took to the president’s office a week ago last Tuesday. But the governors knew best. They forbade him from releasing him.

‘You need drafts and more drafts to get BBC management to agree to a statement and then it goes back and forth and lots of people sign it and have their say. ‘We shoot ourselves in the foot every day we let this drag on without saying anything publicly.’

On Sunday, of course, Turness knew the game was up. He realized that he had lost the trust of the governors and decided to resign.

Speaking to the BBC newsroom yesterday after his decision, Turness was overcome with emotion at times. The question now is: will it go away quietly?

When she left ITN in 2013 to become chairman of NBC News, a compilation of tributes recorded by colleagues included a fake weather forecast for Turness, referencing her nickname ‘Hurricane Deborah’.

Donald Trump last night threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion unless it issues a full and fair retraction, apology and ‘appropriate’ compensation.

Considering his reputation as a volatile character, the people who forced him out may now be worried. After all, he knows where all the bodies are buried.

As one veteran BBC executive told me yesterday: ‘The editorial horrors of Donald Trump, the undue influence of the trans lobby and other major failings at the BBC were all contained in the whistleblower dossier the BBC board saw last May – six months ago.

‘They didn’t do anything about it. They left silently. Until it inevitably leaks. None of our governors lost their jobs. ‘I don’t think it’s all over yet.’

And then, as if on cue, last night Donald Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion in damages unless it gave a full and fair retraction, apology and ‘appropriate’ compensation.

Typhoon Trump may be a much tougher opponent than Hurricane Deborah.