The BBC is trying to recover following the resignations of top bosses Tim Davie and Deborah Turness. The director general and CEO of news announced their shock departures on Sunday night.
Two narratives have taken hold in the days since. For some, this was the inevitable outcome of years of BBC incompetence – biased coverage of the war in Gaza, trans issues, the scandalous and the editing of a Donald Trump speech on Panorama. For others, this is a right-wing hatchet job. It is Trump, TheTelegraph and tabloids conspiring to bring down a great British institution.
Obviously, rival outlets have an agenda and are more than happy to take swings at the BBC. The problem is that the BBC did actually do the things it is accused of!
It did broadcast an episode of Panorama in which two parts of a Trump speech, said many minutes apart, were spliced together. Indeed, a new story by The Telegraph alleges the splicing happened on a second occasion, this time on Newsnight.
People who made the most vile remarks supporting terror did appear on BBC Arabic hundreds of times.
Ofcom did find the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was “materially misleading”. That was because the young narrator was the son of a Hamas official, something the audience was not told in the original broadcast.
BBC Knew About Trump Splicing
And here’s the thing. None of this is actually new. I understand that some WhatsApp groups which contain the ever-growing number of former BBC News employees are awash with talk of Turness and Davie being aware of the Trump issue for some time. They make the same claims about Jonathan Munro, the senior controller, news content and deputy director at the BBC. (If anyone wants to let me into these groups, you know where to find me!)
The upper echelons of BBC management might argue that they were taking in all the details before acting. However, it needed Gordon Rayner at The Telegraph to get stuck in before there were any consequences. One of these might be a substantial bill to the British licence fee payer if Trump sues and wins.
Another “fun” development. The New World’s James Ball, a guest on The Addition Podcast, has spotted an issue with the quote by Michael Presscott. He is the man whose dossier sparked this whole crisis and seems to have missed a crucial ellipsis.
Even without that, I understand the sensitivities here. The idea of an American president, particularly such a litigious and unpleasant one, going after (more) media outlets is worrying. It cannot be that in free, democratic societies the press feels curtailed due to political and financial power being thrown around. That doesn’t mean they can make mistakes, though. In the BBC’s case, it has added responsibility because the British people who fund it and because it is genuinely a meaningful vehicle of soft power for the country.
Disliking Trump is not a reason to defend the indefensible.