The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has apologised to US President Donald Trump for editing a speech that aired on Panorama in 2024, stating it was an “error of judgment”.
However, Naijaonpoint understands that the BBC rejected the president’s demand for compensation.
Recall that Trump had threatened a $1 billion lawsuit, claiming the edit was “false, defamatory, malicious, disparaging, and inflammatory”.
The controversy led to the resignation of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness.
The BBC issued the apology in its ‘Corrections and Clarifications’ section, published Thursday evening.
It noted that the programme had been reviewed after criticism of how Trump’s speech had been edited.
In a statement released on Thursday, BBC Chairman Samir Shah acknowledged the edit “did give the impression of a direct call for violent action” and apologised, saying, “The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement”.
The BBC said: “This programme was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s 6th January 2021 speech was edited.
“During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech.
“However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.
“The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement.
“This programme was not scheduled to be re-broadcast and will not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms.”
The BBC rejects the defamation claim, stating, “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim”.
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