US President Donald Trump has threatened the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit over the editing of a 2021 speech he gave shortly before protesters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s threat on Monday evening is the latest turn in a saga which has embroiled the corporation for the past week, following the leak of a memo which criticised the BBC\u2019s impartiality in a number of areas of its coverage.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n In particular, the memo, which was written by a former BBC journalist and independent consultant to the BBC\u2019s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, Michal Prescott, singled out the misleading editing of Trump\u2019s speech, which was featured in a Panorama documentary aired shortly before the US election last year.<\/p>\n The leaked memo has prompted outrage, mostly from right-wing media organisations and politicians, and prompted the resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness on Sunday.<\/p>\n As a public broadcaster that is funded by a mandatory licence fee for all households in possession of a television, the BBC faces intense scrutiny from all sides of the political divide, with some claiming it is too conservative in its coverage, and others saying it is too left-leaning.<\/p>\n The organisation has also weathered several scandals in recent years over the behaviour of some of its presenters, as well as complaints from its journalists over its coverage of Israel\u2019s war on Gaza.<\/p>\n This year, it was forced to drop former professional footballer and sports commentator Gary Lineker over a pro-Palestine Instagram post that was widely seen as anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n Some media insiders say this is all part of a push by right-wing figures in the BBC to reassert control over the BBC\u2019s editorial content. Speaking to Radio 4\u2019s flagship Today news programme on Monday, David Yelland, former editor of the Sun newspaper, said Davie and Turness were the victims of a \u201ccoup\u201d.<\/p>\n The Guardian newspaper cited a \u201cBBC insider\u201d who said that board member Robbie Gibb, who is a personal friend of Prescott, had \u201cled the charge\u201d.<\/p>\n Gibb also served as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May and was an editorial adviser at the right-leaning GB News, before being appointed by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to the BBC board in 2021. Gibb also sits on the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC) along with BBC chair and committee head Samir Shah, Tim Davie and independent director Caroline Thomson.<\/p>\n The BBC, responding to queries from the Guardian, said Gibb was only one of the four board members who approved Prescott as a consultant to EGSC. Prescott, in his memo, said he had no political affiliations.<\/p>\n This is a timeline of events leading up to the Trump Panorama documentary scandal this week.<\/p>\n Some of the dates highlighted here are taken from a letter sent by chair Samir Shah to parliament on Monday, and from the memo sent by Michael Prescott to BBC board members.<\/p>\n An hour-long BBC Panorama documentary titled, Trump: A Second Chance? was broadcast one week before the US presidential elections.<\/p>\n In it, two separate parts of a speech made by Trump before the Capitol Hill riots in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, were spliced together by editors.<\/p>\n This editing gave the impression that Trump had actively encouraged the riots, which turned violent. The edited clip showed Trump saying, \u201cWe\u2019re going to walk down to the Capitol and I\u2019ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.\u201d<\/p>\n However, transcripts from Trump\u2019s speech show that he first said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we\u2019re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we\u2019re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, nearly an entire hour later, he said, \u201cWe fight like hell. And if you don\u2019t fight like hell, you\u2019re not going to have a country anymore.\u201d He was not directly referencing the march on the Capitol in the second part, and the Panorama documentary did not include a part where Trump said he wanted supporters to \u201cpeacefully\u201d make their voices heard.<\/p>\n Concerns about the editing of the Trump speech were raised at a meeting of the BBC\u2019s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board (EGSB). However, this was raised as part of general reflections on coverage of the elections, according to Samir Shah.<\/p>\n Prescott raised concerns, Shah said, but the committee also heard from the news department, which said it was edited to \u201cbetter convey the message of the speech\u201d. Feedback was sent to the Panorama team, but no formal action was taken, Shah said.<\/p>\n Prescott later wrote in his memo that EGSC consultant David Grossman also delivered a report during the meeting showing the BBC had been biased in its coverage of Trump, and appeared to favour Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n In February, the UK\u2019s media regulator, Ofcom, said a BBC documentary about Palestinian children living through Israel\u2019s war on Gaza had broken rules on impartiality as it was narrated by the 13-year-old son of a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run government.<\/p>\n Five days after it was broadcast, the BBC removed the documentary, Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, from its online streaming platform.<\/p>\n According to Prescott\u2019s memo, a senior member of the news team again defended the Panorama editing, saying, \u201cThere was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr Trump\u2019s speech before the riot at the Capitol. It\u2019s normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips.\u201d<\/p>\n Prescott added that Turness also justified the editing at this meeting.<\/p>\n In his memo, Prescott said he emailed Samir Shah the following day to explain his concerns, saying, \u201cThis is a very, very dangerous precedent. I hope you agree and take some form of action to ensure this potentially huge problem is nipped in the bud.\u201d<\/p>\n Prescott said he received no reply.<\/p>\n This was undertaken by Chris Saul, a legal consultant who has been tasked with previous reviews of the transparency of BBC processes since 2019. The specific issues he was asked to report on for this review, and the outcomes, are unclear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At some point after this, Prescott sent his detailed memo to all board members along with a cover letter stating his \u201cdespair\u201d at being ignored by senior news leaders.<\/p>\n The memo accused the BBC of \u201cmisleading\u201d edits, and claimed the BBC Arabic service had shown anti-Israel bias by over-emphasising stories critical of Israel. Prescott\u2019s memo said BBC coverage was \u201cmisrepresenting\u201d the number of women and children killed in Gaza, and also wrongly presented coverage on starvation in the besieged enclave.<\/p>\n At one point, Prescott appeared to take a swipe at Al Jazeera: When a senior news member defended BBC Arabic in meetings, saying it was almost as trusted as Al Jazeera, Prescott questioned if Al Jazeera \u201cis the gold standard\u201d the BBC should aspire to.<\/p>\n The memo further criticised what he called the BBC\u2019s \u201cone-sided\u201d trans rights coverage, claiming stories highlighting women\u2019s rights organisations and others who were critical of the trans rights movement had been suppressed.<\/p>\n In July, an internal BBC investigation found that the documentary, Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which was removed from its website in February, had breached its editorial guidelines on accuracy.<\/p>\n More than 100 journalists working for the BBC wrote a letter protesting this and claimed they were being forced to \u201cdo Israel\u2019s PR\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary \u2018Gaza: Medics Under Fire\u2019 is just one in a long line of agenda driven decisions,\u201d the journalists wrote. \u201cIt demonstrates, once again, that the BBC is not reporting \u2018without fear or favour\u2019 when it comes to Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n Shah said he met Prescott afterwards to discuss \u201cnext steps\u201d.<\/p>\n This was the first time the contents of the memo entered the public domain. The right-wing broadsheet newspaper accused the BBC of doctoring the Trump speech and reported that Prescott had revealed \u201csystemic problems\u201d which BBC management had failed to address.<\/p>\n Parliament\u2019s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, led by Conservative chair Caroline Dinenage, wrote to Samir Shah requesting access to Prescott\u2019s full report, and demanding to know what actions had been taken by the BBC in response to the memo when it was first sent.<\/p>\n Dinenage also requested an update about the EGSC review, which began in June. \u201cThe BBC clearly has serious questions to answer regarding both its editorial standards and the way in which concerns are handled by senior management,\u201d Dinenage wrote in the letter. <\/span><\/p>\n She added that members of parliament \u201cneed to be reassured that those at the very top of the BBC are treating these issues with the seriousness they deserve\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n In a statement, a BBC spokesperson said, \u201cWhile we don\u2019t comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback, it takes it seriously and considers it carefully.\u201d<\/p>\n According to reporting by the Guardian newspaper, Gibb was present at this meeting and was one of the board members who pressed CEO Turness over Prescott\u2019s claims. Gibb had also pressed Turness on the memo in an earlier board meeting, The Guardian reported.<\/p>\n The parliamentary website announced that Michael Prescott would give evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Wednesday, November 12 at 10am, as the UK government prepared to launch a review of the BBC generally in advance renewal of its Royal Charter, which sets the terms for its operations, and which is due in 2027. In a later update, the session was postponed to an as-yet-undisclosed date.<\/p>\n White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticised the BBC in an interview with The Daily Telegraph following the leak. Leavitt said watching the BBC on her trips to the UK \u201cruins\u201d her day and that the BBC is \u201c100 percent fake news\u201d and a \u201cpropaganda machine\u201d.<\/p>\n In a column in the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper, Johnson accused Director-General Tim Davie of failing to provide any explanations about the issue of impartiality at the BBC following the leak.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one has even come close to resigning,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n Johnson accused the BBC of being a \u201csort of mouthpiece for Hamas\u201d, and added that until Davie responded to the memo, \u201cI am simply going to stop paying my licence fee and suggest you do the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Director-General Tim Davie said \u201cultimate responsibility\u201d lay with him, and that he had decided to resign after \u201creflecting on the very intense personal and professional demands of managing this role over many years in these febrile times\u201d.<\/p>\n Chief executive of BBC News, Deborah Turness said the \u201cbuck stops with me\u201d. She added that \u201cwhile mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump reacted triumphantly to the news of the resignations on his Truth Social network.<\/p>\n He wrote: \u201cThe TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting\/FIRED, because they were caught \u2018doctoring\u2019 my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th. Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt \u201cJournalists.\u201d These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!\u201d<\/p>\n The BBC chair and head of the EGSC, Shah responded to Parliament\u2019s letter of November 4.<\/p>\n Shah said many of the issues Prescott raised were already under review.<\/p>\n He pushed back against claims by Prescott that management had not acted on the points raised regarding the Trump documentary.<\/p>\n Shah wrote, \u201cThere was concern expressed by members of the Committee as well as Mr Prescott of the way programme was edited. However, the EGSC also heard from BBC News that the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama\u2019s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump\u2019s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he met with Prescott after an October 17 board meeting to discuss the issues and next steps.<\/p>\n Shah apologised for the BBC\u2019s \u201cerror of judgement\u201d over the editing of Trump\u2019s speech, but said there was no institutional bias at the BBC.<\/p>\n He also laid out steps being taken to review the issues Prescott had raised and to overhaul the EGSC more generally.<\/p>\n US President Donald Trump threatened a $1bn lawsuit via a letter to the BBC from his counsel, Alejandro Brito, alleging \u201cmalicious, disparaging\u201d edits. <\/span><\/p>\n The letter demanded a retraction of the documentary, an apology, and payments to \u201cappropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n The broadcaster has been given until Friday 22:00 GMT to respond or, Trump\u2019s lawyer said, he will be: \u201cleft with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 in damages. The BBC is on notice. PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n Outgoing Director-General Davie and BBC chair Samir Shah spoke to staff for 40 minutes. Davie admitted a \u201cmistake\u201d in the Panorama documentary and said that pressure following criticism of the film had contributed to his decision to resign. However, he also sounded a defiant note, and told staff, \u201cI think we\u2019ve got to fight for our journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n US President Donald Trump has threatened the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit over the editing of a 2021 speech he gave shortly before protesters attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Trump\u2019s threat on Monday evening is the latest turn in a saga which has embroiled the corporation for the past week, following the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
![\"Tim](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2025-11-11T093113Z_898303105_RC28UHATYZLB_RTRMADP_3_BRITAIN-BBC-1762869080.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
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June 2025: <\/strong>Review of the EGSC\u2019s processes begins<\/h3>\n
June 2025: Prescott leaves the BBC<\/h3>\n
July 2025: BBC journalists complain about Gaza coverage<\/h3>\n
October 17, 2025: Prescott\u2019s memo is reviewed at a full board meeting<\/h3>\n
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November 5, 2025: Prescott to give evidence to Parliament<\/h3>\n
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![\"BBC\"](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2025-11-10T092843Z_1883400829_RC2KTHAY0AF0_RTRMADP_3_BRITAIN-BBC-1762788571.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C514&quality=80\")
November 9, 2025: US President Donald Trump weighs in<\/h3>\n
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![\"Shah\"](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/2023-12-13T101433Z_2032663982_RC29W4AMCIU4_RTRMADP_3_BRITAIN-BBC-CHAIRMAN-1762873988.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C523&quality=80\")
November 10, 2025: Trump threatens $1bn law suit<\/h3>\n
November 11, 2025: BBC bosses address staff<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"