"The resignations of BBC director-general Tim Davie and CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness over dishonest editing of a speech in 2021 by U.S. President Donald Trump raise several disturbing questions. These concern the effectiveness and integrity of the BBC's internal editorial procedures for investigating complaints, and the pressure being brought to bear on the BBC by conservative political and media forces in the United Kingdom."
"In the speech, Trump said at one point: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer our brave senators and congressmen and women." Fifty minutes later, in the same speech, he said: "I'll be with you. And we fight. Fight like hell." According to the BBC's own account, these two quotes were spliced together to read: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol [...] and I'll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.""
Tim Davie and Deborah Turness resigned after dishonest editing of a 6 January 2021 speech by Donald Trump was aired in a BBC Panorama documentary called "Trump: A Second Chance?" broadcast a week before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Two separate passages of the speech were spliced to make it appear Trump urged violence, altering the sequence and tone. The splice combined a call to "walk down to the Capitol" with later remarks "I'll be with you" and "fight like hell." Michael Prescott served as an external adviser to the BBC's editorial standards committee; his appointment had been pushed by Robbie Gibb, and Prescott left in June 2025 after raising concerns about systemic bias.
Read at Nieman Lab
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