BBC Chair Samir Shah has apologised for what he described as an “error of judgement” in editing a documentary that misrepresented a speech by US President Donald Trump.
The apology follows the resignation of BBC Director General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness on Sunday night, after a leaked internal memo criticised the editing of a 2024 Panorama programme about President Trump, reports BBC.
The memo, written by former BBC adviser Michael Prescott, alleged that producers had spliced together two separate portions of Trump’s speech to make it appear as though he explicitly encouraged the January 2021 Capitol Hill riots.
In a letter to MPs on the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Shah admitted that the editing “did give the impression of a direct call for violent action,” calling it a serious lapse in editorial judgement.
President Trump has sent a letter to the BBC threatening legal action over the broadcast.
Prescott’s memo also criticised broader areas of BBC News coverage, claiming he wrote it “in despair at inaction by the BBC Executive.”
However, Shah defended the organisation in his letter to MPs, saying it was “simply not true” that the BBC had failed to address concerns raised in the memo. In a later interview, he insisted there was “no systemic bias” within the BBC.