The BBC’s chairman acknowledged Monday that it was too slow in responding over a misleading edit of a speech by US President Donald Trump but rejected claims that the broadcaster’s impartiality was being undermined from within its own board.
Senior BBC leaders were quizzed by Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee amid a major crisis at the publicly funded corporation after its director general and head of news both quit earlier this month and Trump threatened to file a billion-dollar lawsuit.
The BBC drew Trump’s ire – and deep public scrutiny – after an internal memo compiled by one of its former external advisers was leaked to the British media. The memo criticised cases of alleged biased reporting over a documentary on Trump that was aired days before the 2024 US presidential election, as well as other BBC coverage including its stance on transgender issues, Gaza and race.
Chairman Samir Shah said the broadcaster should have acted much quicker in addressing the allegations.
The third-party production company that made the documentary – titled Trump: A Second Chance? – spliced together three quotes from a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell”.
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