BBC Director General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness have resigned over Trump Documentary Scandal.
NaijaOnPoint Nigeria reports that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been thrown into crisis as its Director General, Tim Davie, and CEO of News, Deborah Turness, resigned following a controversy over a Panorama documentary about former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Their resignations came after The Telegraph published a leaked internal memo revealing that the documentary allegedly spliced two parts of Trump’s speech together, creating the impression that he had explicitly encouraged the January 2021 Capitol Hill riots. The memo also criticised several aspects of the BBC’s recent news coverage.
In a statement, Davie admitted responsibility, saying: “There have been some mistakes made, and as Director General, I have to take ultimate responsibility.”
Turness, in a separate statement, said: “The buck stops with me. It’s a difficult decision, but the right one.”
The dual resignation is unprecedented in the BBC’s history. While the corporation has previously seen individual resignations of directors general such as George Entwistle in 2012 and Greg Dyke in 2004 losing both its top executive and news head simultaneously has left the broadcaster exposed and destabilised.
Davie and Turness were responsible for overseeing the BBC’s editorial integrity and global news output across television, radio, and online platforms. Their departure now forces the organisation to find interim replacements amid growing scrutiny over alleged editorial bias.
Analysts say the incoming leadership will face an uphill task restoring public trust and steering the BBC through one of its most challenging credibility crises in recent years.