The British broadcaster BBC apologized this Thursday (13) to the President of the United States, Donald Trump, for the edition considered misleading of his speech on January 6, 2021, shown in a documentary on the program Panorama.
In a letter sent to the White House, the broadcaster acknowledged that the video shown in the documentary gave the “mistaken impression” that Trump had made a “direct call for violence”, but rejected the US$1 billion compensation payment demanded by the American president’s lawyers.
According to the letter, the documentary, which was called Trump: A Second Chance?, will be permanently withdrawn from circulation. The BBC also said it had no plans to rebroadcast it
The case involves the editing of Trump’s speech made on January 6, 2021, shortly before the invasion of the Capitol. The BBC combined excerpts from different moments, which suggested that the then president had called his supporters to the insurrection. In a note published in the Corrections and Clarifications section at the end of October, the broadcaster acknowledged that the montage “did not make it clear that these were different parts of the speech”.
Trump accused the BBC of “distorting and defrauding” his speech. In an interview with Fox Newshe said that his speech had been “mutilated” and that the display “misled viewers”. Its lawyers had set a deadline of this Friday (14) for the broadcaster to publicly recant and pay financial compensation. The American president said this week that suing the BBC was an “obligation”.
The case provoked a crisis at the BBC, which culminated in the resignations of the broadcaster’s director general, Tim Davie, and the head of journalism, Deborah Turness. In a statement, Turness denied that the broadcaster was “institutionally biased”, but acknowledged that the episode “caused damage to the BBC’s reputation”.
