UK state broadcaster BBC has had to apologise to the US President. This, after Trump filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, accusing them of intentionally harming his reputation.
A BBC Panorama documentary allegedly misrepresented a speech Trump made in 2021, after losing the presidential election.
In the documentary, two parts of Trump’s speech are stitched together in such a way that directly held him responsible for the Capitol riots.
What Trump had said in the speech
In the original speech, Trump said,"We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."
In the same speech, more that 50 minutes later, he added, "And we fight. We fight like hell."
But, the edited version in essence said we're going down to the Capitol and we fight.
The documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” was released a week before the 2024 US presidential elections.
BBC says no basis for defamation
The BBC has now apologised for what it called an ‘unintentional mistake,’ but contested the demand for compensation.
The broadcaster said in a statement that there was no basis for a defamation claim.
According to the BBC, the documentary did not cause Trump any harm as he was re-elected to the Oval Office.
However, the BBC has held those responsible for the documentary accountable. BBC Director General Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness resigned on November 9.
Amid the ongoing controversy over the Panorama episode, the UK-based news agency, The Daily Telegraph, flagged another misleading edit from Trump's 2021 speech, which was used on BBC's show, Newsnight, in 2022, two years before the Panorama episode was released.
