MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

BBC Chiefs resign amid crisis over misleading Trump speech edit

Davie had served the BBC for 20 years

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was thrown into a deep leadership crisis on Sunday after Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness both resigned following accusations that a documentary had misleadingly edited a speech by US President Donald Trump.

The resignations come after days of intense scrutiny over the BBC's political impartiality, stemming from a complaint about the editing of a 2024 Panorama documentary, which aired just ahead of the US Presidential election.

The controversy centers on a clip of a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021. Critics, including a former external BBC adviser whose memo was leaked to The Daily Telegraph, alleged that the documentary spliced together two separate, non-sequential parts of the speech to imply Trump explicitly encouraged violence at the US Capitol.

The Panorama segment is accused of combining a section where Trump said, “We will go down to the Capitol,” with a distinct, later phrase where he said, “and we fight like hell.”

In the full transcript, Trump’s call to march was followed by remarks about cheering on lawmakers, while the “fight like hell” comment was made in a separate context about challenging the election result.

In his message to staff, Tim Davie, who served the BBC for 20 years, acknowledged that the crisis contributed to his decision to step down, though he insisted the move was his own. “While the BBC generally performs well, mistakes have been made and ultimately the director-general must take responsibility,” Davie stated. “The current debate surrounding the BBC's coverage has understandably contributed to my decision.”

BBC Chairman Samir Shah praised Davie's tenure, but noted the former director-general faced “constant pressure” that led him to his decision.

“The ongoing controversy around the Panorama on President Trump has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC... As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me,” Turness wrote to staff, though she vigorously denied that BBC News was “institutionally biased.”

Trump celebrated the resignations, reacting on his Truth Social platform by attacking the UK's public broadcaster. ”The TOP people in the BBC... are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught 'doctoring' my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th,“ he wrote while thanking the Telegraph for exposing the ”Corrupt 'Journalists,'“ calling the incident ”a terrible thing for Democracy!”

The resignations come as the BBC faces broader political pressure, including demands from the UK Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee to answer allegations of bias in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict and other sensitive social issues.