Trump cheers as BBC boss, news chief quit over video ‘doctoring’ outrage

London: The BBC’s director-general and its chief executive of news have resigned after the White House accused the national broadcaster of spreading “fake news” in a 2024 documentary that included edited footage Donald Trump.

The US president welcomed the resignations and slammed the “dishonest people” who edited the video, accusing them of trying to sway the US presidential election last November.

The shock resignations came on the eve of a parliamentary hearing to investigate how the BBC aired the Trump documentary, amid a growing row over claims of political bias on issues including the war in Gaza and trans rights.

Director-general Tim Davie announced his departure on Sunday night in London (5am on Monday, AEST) after news emerged earlier in the day saying the national broadcaster was expected to apologise for the Trump documentary.

“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as Director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” he said.

The chief executive of BBC News, Deborah Turness, announced her departure moments later in an extraordinary development after days of conjecture about the responsibility for the edited video, which appeared in a documentary – Trump: A Second Chance? – shown on the BBC’s Panorama program.

“The ongoing controversy around the Panorama [episode] on President Trump has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC – an institution that I love,” Turness said in a statement to staff.

“As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.

“In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down. While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.”

Revealing an intense weekend of discussions, Turness said she offered her resignation to Davie on Saturday night, London time.

Reports also emerged then that the BBC chairman, Samir Shah, intended to issue an apology on Monday about the edited Trump video.

The Trump documentary aired on the BBC on October 28 last year – a week before the US presidential election – but the criticism of its editing only emerged last week when the London Telegraph published a leaked assessment.

Trump responded to the BBC resignations by berating the broadcaster and saying it had tried to influence the election.

“The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught ‘doctoring’ my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th,” he posted on Truth Social.

“Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt ‘Journalists’. 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!”

British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy thanked Davie for his service in a statement on X that emphasised trust.

“Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high-quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world,” she said.

The storm over the BBC’s leadership and culture is centred on an edited video in the documentary that aired last year about the US president, including a segment about his address to supporters at the January 6 protests in early 2021.

The video showed Trump urging supporters to go to the Capitol with him to show they believed the election the previous November had been stolen.

“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell,” Trump said in the video aired on the BBC.

But the full address given that day did not show those words being uttered in that way.

The documentary, produced by October Films for the BBC, used two different Trump statements in his address and combined them.

Despite it not being made by BBC news reporters, the national broadcaster is responsible for what it aired.

The London Telegraph revealed the concerns about the edited video in a dossier about BBC bias prepared by a former editorial adviser to the BBC editorial guidelines and standards committee.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted the BBC in a statement published on Saturday, adding to the political pressure in the UK to apologise for the editing and hold senior staff responsible.

“This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100 per cent fake news that should no longer be worth the time on the television screens of the great people of the United Kingdom,” Leavitt said.

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