The criticisms of the alleged BBC bias have caused one of the biggest internal earthquakes in recent years in the British public broadcaster. The president of the corporation, Samir Shahapologized this Monday for the broadcast of an edited fragment of the speech that the president of the United States, Donald Trumpgave the day of assault on the Capitol in which he appears to encourage his followers to take the building by force. The fragment, broadcast on the prestigious BBC program ‘Panorama’ a few days before the 2024 presidential elections, has led to the resignation this Sunday of the network’s general director, Tim Davieand the head of news, Deborah Turness.
The ‘Panorama’ episode, titled ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’ (Trump, a second chance?), included a fragment of the speech on January 6, 2021 in which the American president seemed to urge his followers to take over the seat of the legislative branch. “Let’s go to the Capitol and I will be there with you, and we will fight. “We will fight tooth and nail.”. This fragment was taken from different moments of Trump’s speech, separated by almost an hour, and did not include other moments in which he encouraged his people to make their voices heard “peacefully and patriotically”.
In a letter sent this Monday to the Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons, Shah has assured that the editing of the fragment is due to a “error of judgment” and has apologized for what happened. According to the president of the British public broadcaster, the objective of BBC News was “so that the Panorama audience could better understand how [Trump] had been received by his supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time.” However, Shah has acknowledged that the way the speech was edited “gave the impression of being a direct call to violence”.
Alleged bias
The controversy over the BBC’s alleged bias has been growing since last week, when a letter from the veteran journalist was leaked to the press. Michael Prescottformer advisor to Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee of the corporation (EGSC, in its acronym in English), in which it warned of the public chain bias not only in the case of Trump’s speech on the day of the assault on the Capitol, but also in other matters such as people’s rights trans or the conflict between Israel y Palestine.
“My opinion is that the directive has repeatedly failed when it comes to implementing measures to resolve the identified problems and, in many cases, has simply refused to acknowledge that a problem existed. In fact, I would say that the board’s attitude toward testing serious and systemic problems is now a systemic problem in itself,” he said. Prescott in the letter sent to the BBC board of directors last September.
Both Shah as the network’s until now head of news, Deborah Turnesshave denied having ignored the recommendations of their advisors regarding compliance with editorial standards and have insisted that there is no “institutional bias” in the corporation. “I resigned over the weekend because the responsibility falls on me. But I would like to make one thing very clear: BBC News has no institutional biases. That is why it is the “world’s most trusted news provider”Turness said after being asked by a journalist from her own network.
Both Trump as the press secretary of his Administration, Caroline Leavitthave celebrated the departure of Davie and Turness. “They are very dishonest people who They tried to influence the election result presidential elections,” the US president said in a message published on his social network. The Republican’s lawyers have demanded a rectification to the BBC and have threatened to claim up to $1 billion as compensation in case you don’t do it in the next few hours.
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