LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government rallied to the defense of the BBC on Tuesday after allegations of bias from its critics and the threat of a lawsuit from U.S. President Donald Trump over the way the broadcaster edited a speech he made after losing the 2020 presidential election
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the national broadcaster faces “challenges, some of its own making,” but is “by far the most widely used and trusted source of news in the United
Kingdom.”
With critics in media and politics demanding an overhaul of the BBC’s funding and governance, Nandy said that "the BBC as an institution is absolutely essential to this country.
“At a time when the lines are being dangerously blurred between facts and opinions, news and polemic, the BBC stands apart,” she said in the House of Commons.
A lawyer for Trump is demanding a retraction, apology and compensation from the broadcaster over the allegedly defamatory sequence in a documentary broadcast last year.
Fallout from the documentary has already claimed the BBC’s top executive, Tim Davie, and head of news Deborah Turness, who both resigned over what the broadcaster called an “error of judgment.”
The BBC has apologized for misleading editing of a speech Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.
Broadcast days before the November 2024 U.S. election, the documentary “Trump: A Second Chance?” spliced together three quotes from two sections of the speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
BBC chair Samir Shah said the broadcaster accepted “that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.”
The BBC has not yet formally responded to the demand from Florida-based Trump attorney Alejandro Brito that it “retract the false, defamatory, disparaging and inflammatory statements,” apologize and “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused” by Friday, or face legal action for $1 billion in damages.
Nigel Huddleston, media spokesman for the opposition Conservative Party, said the BBC should “provide a fulsome apology to the U.S. president" to avoid legal action.
Legal experts say Trump is likely too late to sue the BBC in Britain, because a one-year deadline to file a defamation suit has expired. He could still bring a defamation claim in several U.S. states, and his lawyer cited Florida law in a letter to the BBC, but faces considerable legal hurdles.
The publicly funded BBC is a century-old national institution under growing pressure in an era of polarized politics and changing media viewing habits.
Funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by all households who watch live TV or any BBC content, the broadcaster is frequently a political football, with conservatives seeing a leftist slant in its news output and some liberals accusing it of having a conservative bias.
Governments of both left and right have long been accused of meddling with the broadcaster, which is overseen by a board that includes both BBC nominees and government appointees.
Some defenders of the BBC allege that board members appointed under previous Conservative governments have been undermining the corporation from within.
Pressure on the broadcaster has been growing since the right-leaning Daily Telegraph published parts of a dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines. As well as the Trump edit, Prescott criticized the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service.
Near the BBC's London headquarters, some passersby said the scandal would further erode trust in a broadcaster already under pressure.
Amanda Carey, a semi-retired lawyer, said the editing of the Trump speech is “something that should never have happened."
“The last few scandals that they’ve had, trust in the BBC is very much waning and a number of people are saying they’re going to refuse to pay the license (fee)," she said.
A growing number of people argue that the license fee is unsustainable in a world where many households watch little or no traditional TV.
Nandy said the government will soon start the once-a-decade process of reviewing the BBC's governing charter, which expires at the end of 2027. She said the government would ensure the BBC is “sustainably funded (and) commands the public’s trust," but did not say whether the license fee might be scaled back or scrapped.
Davie, who announced his resignation as BBC director-general on Sunday, acknowledged that “we have made some mistakes that have cost us.”
But, he added: "We've got to to fight for our journalism.”
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Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.
