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malaise

(291,003 posts) Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:00 PM Sunday

WTF? BBC director general Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness resign

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cd9kqz1yyxkt

BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness resign over a documentary about Donald Trump
The Telegraph published a leaked BBC memo suggesting a Panorama documentary edited two parts of Trump's speech together so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riots of January 2021
The memo also criticised other areas of BBC News coverage
In a statement, Davie says: "There have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility" - read it in full
In a separate statement, Turness says "the buck stops with me," describing the decision to step down as "difficult". She admits mistakes were made, but says allegations of institutional bias are "wrong"

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That is why I stick with the UK Guardian .
That is all

7 replies

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WTF? BBC director general Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness resign (Original Post) malaise Sunday OP

Further erosion of the trust in global news Melon Sunday #1

very strange. Thanks for posting. spooky3 Sunday #2

The editing (done by an independent producer, but the BBC producers didn't stop it) was fairly misleading muriel_volestrangler Sunday #3

Thanks for this malaise Sunday #5

The annoying thing is that it wouldn't have made much difference at the time muriel_volestrangler Sunday #7

Doctoring a video of a president who says the dumb shit Trump spews TheProle Sunday #6

I have friends in the UK who hate trump passionately radical noodle Sunday #4

Melon

(885 posts)

1. Further erosion of the trust in global news

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:04 PM

Sunday

Against trump or anyone, just report, don’t edit the message. The BBC was globally trusted as being neutral.

spooky3

(38,132 posts)

2. very strange. Thanks for posting.

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:11 PM

Sunday

muriel_volestrangler

(105,192 posts)

3. The editing (done by an independent producer, but the BBC producers didn't stop it) was fairly misleading

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:19 PM

Sunday

There's a good case that Trump was inciting the riot, but the programme took audio from about 50 minutes apart, and really did make it sound like it was all one sentence.

Prescott raised concerns over the Panorama documentary Trump: A Second Chance? - which was broadcast last year and made for the BBC by independent production company October Films Ltd.

In his speech in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, 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."

However, in the Panorama edit he was 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."

The two sections of the speech that were edited together were more than 50 minutes apart.

The "fight like hell" comment was taken from a section where Trump discussed how "corrupt" US elections were. In total, he used the words "fight" or "fighting" 20 times in the speech.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd9kqz1yyxkt?post=asset%3A9fc033c0-e3e2-4a3c-8f7c-f32585c47569#post

The trouble is that the corporations that want the BBC to fail (Telegraph, Murdoch, Mail) spend so much time trying to make the BBC look bad that when it does fuck up, it feels it has to wear sackcloth and ashes.

malaise

(291,003 posts)

5. Thanks for this

Reply to muriel_volestrangler (Reply #3)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:44 PM

Sunday

Makes sense

muriel_volestrangler

(105,192 posts)

7. The annoying thing is that it wouldn't have made much difference at the time

Reply to malaise (Reply #5)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:53 PM

Sunday

It's not like the people who would have watched it were US voters who'd be influenced by it; for the general "what do we in the UK think of Trump" evidence, there's loads of other stuff they could have run straight. And there doesn't seem to have been any public complaints about it at the time - someone noticed it at some time, and it turned up in this internal review.

TheProle

(3,840 posts)

6. Doctoring a video of a president who says the dumb shit Trump spews

Reply to muriel_volestrangler (Reply #3)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:53 PM

Sunday

is an unforced error.

radical noodle

(10,432 posts)

4. I have friends in the UK who hate trump passionately

Reply to malaise (Original post)

Sun Nov 9, 2025, 06:40 PM

Sunday

but they said that this "documentary" was a bridge too far. They don't like being lied to by the BBC because it undermines the network's credibility.

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