BBC director general Tim Davie resigns after criticism of Trump documentary edit

LAST UPDATE | 20 hrs ago

BBC DIRECTOR GENERAL Tim Davie and its CEO of News Deborah Turness have resigned from their positions at the national broadcaster over criticism of edits made to a speech made by US President Donald Trump.

Their resignations follow the publication of details of a BBC internal memo in The Telegraph today that suggested the edits made to Trump’s speech – which was included in a BBC Panorama documentary – made it appear that Trump had encouraged the storming of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 after losing the US election to Joe Biden.

It is claimed that the BBC had spliced together two parts of Trump’s speech in a misleading manner. The broadcaster is expected to apologise for the incident tomorrow.

In a statement carried by the BBC, Davie said “overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as Director-General I have to take ultimate responsibility”.

He said: “I wanted to let you know that I have decided to leave the BBC after 20 years. This is entirely my decision, and I remain very thankful to the Chair and Board for their unswerving and unanimous support throughout my entire tenure, including during recent days.

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“I am working through exact timings with the Board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months.”

Turness said she had offered her resignation to Davie yesterday.

She said “the ongoing controversy around the Panorama on President Trump has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC – an institution that I love”, and added that “the buck stops with me”.

“While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.”

While Trump has yet to respond personally to the news, his 28-year-old press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted a screenshot of two news headlines: one proclaiming Trump was going “to war” with the BBC over the issue, and the second announcing today’s resignations.

“Shot”, Leavitt labelled the first headline, and “Chaser” the second.

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