BBC apologises for doctoring Donald Trump’s January 6 speech
The BBC has tendered an apology to President Donald Trump for doctoring his January 6 speech.
Although the BBC apologised to Mr Trump in a statement on Thursday, the news organisation stated that there was no “basis for defamation”.
“We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” the BBC said.
In addition to publicly admitting error in their editorial judgment, the BBC’s legal team replied to a letter from Mr Trump’s legal team, demanding a full retraction of the documentary and threatening a $1 billion lawsuit.
“BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme,” the BBC legal team said. “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”
Mr Trump’s legal team, in a letter addressed to the BBC on Monday, gave the newspaper a deadline of November 14 to do a “full and fair retraction” of the Panorama documentary—or face a $1 billion (£760 million) legal suit.
“If the BBC does not comply with the above by November 14, 2025, at 5:00 p.m. EST, President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages. The BBC is on notice,” stated the letter written by Alejandro Brito, one of Mr Trump’s lawyers.
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