BBC faces leadership crisis after news bosses quit over Trump speech edit and bias claims

LONDON AP The BBC was facing a leadership problem and mounting political pressure on Monday after its top executive and its head of news both quit over the editing of a speech by U S President Donald Trump The resignation of BBC Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness over accusations of bias was welcomed by Trump who announced the way his speech had been edited was an attempt to step on the scales of a Presidential Balloting BBC chairman Samir Shah apologized Monday for the broadcaster s error of judgment in editing the speech Trump delivered on Jan before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington We accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action Shah stated in a letter to lawmakers Its Panorama documentary effort 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 explained he needed supporters to demonstrate peacefully In a letter to staff Davie commented There have been particular mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility Turness stated the conflict was damaging the BBC and she quit because the buck stops with me As she arrived Monday at the BBC s central London headquarters Turness defended the organization s journalists against statements of bias Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality and I will stand by their journalism she noted There is no institutional bias Mistakes are made but there s no institutional bias Trump posted a link to a Daily Telegraph story about the speech-editing on his Truth Social structure thanking the newspaper for exposing these Corrupt Journalists These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Ballot He called that a terrible thing for Democracy White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted on X posting a screen grab of an article headlined Trump goes to war with fake news BBC beside another about Davie s resignation with the words shot and chaser Trump speech edited Pressure on the broadcaster s top executives 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 it criticized the BBC s coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israel bias in the BBC s Arabic system The Panorama episode exhibited an edited clip from the January speech in which Trump claimed the presidential ballot had been rigged Trump is shown saying We re going to walk down to the Capitol and I ll be there with you And we fight We fight like hell According to video and a transcript from Trump s comments that day he disclosed I ll be there with you we re going to walk down we re going to walk down Anyone you want but I think right here we re going to walk down to the Capitol and we re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we re ostensibly not going to be cheering so much for specific of them Because you ll never take back our country with weakness You have to show strength and you have to be strong We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated lawfully slated I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard Trump used the fight like hell phrase toward the end of the speech but without referencing the Capitol We fight like hell And if you don t fight like hell you re not going to have a country anymore Trump reported A national institution The -year-old BBC faces greater scrutiny than other broadcasters and criticism from its commercial rivals because of its status as a national institution funded through an annual license fee of pounds paid by all households who watch live TV or any BBC content The broadcaster is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial and critics are quick to point out when they think it has failed It s frequently a political football with conservatives seeing a leftist slant in its news output and specific liberals accusing it of having a conservative bias It has also been criticized from all angles over its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza In February the BBC removed a documentary about Gaza from its streaming amenity after it emerged that the child narrator was the son of an official in the Hamas-led cabinet 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 regime appointees Craig Oliver a former BBC news executive who worked as director of communications for Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron disclosed those at the top needed to do a better job of defending the corporation We re living in a fast-moving digital world where there are a lot of people who want to attack the BBC he commented It s been obvious for days now that the BBC needed to step up explain apologize move on And what we ve seen is the governance of the BBC saying we ll get back to you on Monday we ll leave that for days We ll allow the president of the United States to be attacking the institution and we re not going to properly defend it