BBC Director General Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Turness have resigned amid reports suggesting that a BBC documentary misleadingly edited Donald Trump’s speech from January 6, 2021. 

The documentary produced by BBC Panorama had analysed Trump’s political trajectory and was released days before the 2024 US polls. It allegedly combined two separate segments of Trump’s speech, originally over 50 minutes apart, to create the impression that he explicitly incited violence during the Capitol riots.

News about the resignations was splashed across several front pages on Monday, including the Financial Times, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. “BBC boss Davie quits amid claims of biased coverage and reporting failures,” read the Financial Times. “BBC bosses quit in disgrace,” read the Daily Mail. The Daily Telegraph reportedly called it the “biggest crisis in more than a decade”.

The resignations come after a dossier sent to the BBC board by Michael Prescott was leaked to the Daily Telegraph last week. Prescott was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board for three years, before leaving in June.

In the dossier, Prescott said what motivated him to prepare the note was “inaction” by BBC executives. He wrote, “I watched the programme and found it to be neither balanced nor impartial – it seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance...I raised my concerns at the EGSC and David Grossman [the senior editorial adviser to the committee] was asked to review the programme…He concluded the main contributors to the documentary were heavily weighted against Trump, with just one supporter against ten who questioned his fitness for office.”

“Worse still, David highlighted alarming concerns about how Panorama had edited Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol Hill riot…Examining the charge that Trump had incited protesters to storm Capitol Hill, it turned out that Panorama had spliced together two clips from separate parts of his speech…This created the impression that Trump said something he did not and, in doing so, materially misled viewers.”

During a segment of the documentary, a clip is showcased showing Trump say in one continuous go, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you… and we fight. We fight like hell.” However, this was allegedly not faithful to the chronological order of Trump’s speech. 

What started as an accusation of misleading editing quickly spiralled into a full-blown institutional scandal.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson publicly called on Director General Tim Davie to “explain or resign,” accusing the BBC of being “caught red-handed in multiple acts of Left-wing bias”. On November 7, the White House condemned the BBC for “purposeful dishonesty”. Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said British taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a Leftist propaganda machine,” though she stopped short of calling for the licence fee to be abolished.

Trump said “corrupt journalists” had been exposed. “These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election.”

The UK Culture, Media and Sport Minister Lisa Nandy called the allegations “incredibly serious”.

Under growing scrutiny, the BBC moved to limit the damage. On November 8, The Telegraph reported that the corporation would issue a public apology for doctoring Trump’s speech. BBC chairman Samir Shah confirmed that he would write to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee to “express regret” for the misleading edit and reaffirm the broadcaster’s commitment to impartiality.

On November 9, both Tim Davie and Deborah Turness resigned. In his statement, Davie said he accepted “ultimate responsibility” for the errors made under his leadership and acknowledged that the controversy had “undermined trust” in the BBC’s journalism.

Davie’s resignation was celebrated by Nigel Farage, leader of the populist hard-right Reform UK party, which is soaring in opinion polls.

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