Overview
- BBC chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House apologizing for a misleading Panorama montage of Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech.
- The corporation says it regrets the editing but firmly contests that Trump’s threatened $1 billion defamation action has any legal basis, noting its lawyers have replied to his counsel.
- The BBC says it is investigating a second potential misleading edit flagged by the Telegraph involving a June 2022 Newsnight segment that reportedly stitched separate phrases from the same speech.
- Trump set a deadline of Friday 22:00 GMT for an apology and withdrawal of the Panorama program, with the BBC stating it will respond to his lawyers in due course.
- The Panorama documentary will not be rebroadcast, and the earlier incident has already prompted the resignations of the BBC’s director-general and the head of BBC News.