Donald Trump’s press secretary celebrates after Tim Davie resigns as BBC director-general
The White House press secretary has mocked the BBC following Tim Davie’s resignation as director general.
Mr Davie resigned along with News chief executive Deborah Turness on Sunday evening, following criticism that the BBC Panorama documentary misled viewers by editing out a speech by US president Donald Trump.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released screenshots of two news articles, one showing Trump criticizing the BBC, titled “shot,” and the other, about Tim Davie’s resignation, titled “chasing.”
The BBC was expected to apologize on Monday over concerns about impartiality, including how US President Donald Trump’s speech to an episode of Panorama was edited.
Trump: Second Chance?, broadcast by the BBC a week before last year’s US election. A clip on his show spliced together clips from parts of the US president’s speech on January 6, 2021, making it appear that he told his supporters that he would march with them to the US Capitol to “fight like hell.”
It has highlighted previous concerns about the impartiality of the broadcaster, which has been accused of bias by groups across the political spectrum.
After details of the edited clip were revealed by The Telegraph, citing a memo by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, Ms Leavitt was highly critical of the broadcaster.
“This deliberately dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further proof that this is completely, 100% fake news and should no longer be worth the television screen time of the UK’s great people,” he told the paper.
Mr Davie’s resignation was met with approval by right-wing politicians who accused the BBC of institutional bias.
In his resignation statement published by the broadcaster, the former chief executive said that due to the nature of his role he had to “take ultimate responsibility”.
Mr. Davie thanked the President and Board “for their unwavering and unanimous support throughout my entire term” and emphasized that the decision to step down was “entirely my decision.”
He also paid tribute to the organisation, which he said was “uniquely valuable and speaks to the best of us”, although he acknowledged that the broadcaster “is not perfect and must always be open, transparent and accountable”.
Culture minister Lisa Nandy thanked Mr Davie for his service and said he had led the BBC “through a period of significant change and helped the organization cope with the challenges it has faced in recent years”.
UK Reform leader Nigel Farage, meanwhile, called on him to signal “the beginning of wholesale change”.
He added: “The government needs to come in and appoint someone with a track record of turning companies and their cultures around. Preferably this would be someone from the private sector who runs a forward-thinking business and understands public relations.”
But Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said the BBC should seize the opportunity to “turn over a new leaf, rebuild trust and not surrender to the likes of Nigel Farage who want to destroy it”.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch welcomed the resignations but said “this is a catalog of serious failures that go much deeper”.
He added: “The Prescott report has exposed institutional bias that cannot be eliminated with two resignations; strong action must be taken on all the issues it raises.”
