LONDON (dpa-AFX) – The BBC, Great Britain’s world-famous public broadcaster, is in a deep leadership crisis. Channel boss Tim Davie resigned in the evening, as did Deborah Turness, who is responsible for BBC news. The background is, among other things, the editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump for the program “Panorama”.
Davie said he had decided to leave the BBC after 20 years. He made this decision alone and is grateful for the support, even in the past few days. The current debate is not the only reason, but it contributed to his decision. “There were some mistakes made” and as general manager he ultimately had to take responsibility for them, Davie said.
The Telegraph newspaper recently reported on an internal memo raising concerns about the impartiality of the BBC’s reporting. Specifically, the point of the Trump speech on January 6, 2021 is that the editing makes it seem as if the US President had said that he would go to the Capitol with his supporters and fight to the extreme.
In a post on his online platform Truth Social, Trump thanked the Telegraph for exposing what he said were “corrupt” journalists. “These are very dishonest people” who tried to influence the presidential election, Trump wrote. To make matters worse, they come from another country “that many consider to be our most important ally. What a terrible thing for democracy!”
BBC documentary was made before US election broadcast
On the day of this speech, Trump supporters violently stormed the House of Representatives in Washington. Congress met there to formally confirm Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election against Trump. Trump has been trying to reinterpret January 6, 2021 for years. It wasn’t a storm, but a “day of love,” he claimed repeatedly during his election campaign.
According to the PA news agency, the BBC documentary (“Trump: A Second Chance?”) was broadcast weeks before last year’s US election, which Trump won. What was recently expected was an apology and clarification from the broadcaster.
The BBC was founded 103 years ago and has achieved worldwide fame – also because of its journalistic quality. It initially remained unclear how the broadcaster would react to the resignations./mj/DP/zb