“We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” the BBC wrote in its Corrections and Clarifications section, published on the evening of Nov. 13.
“The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement. This programme was not scheduled to be re-broadcast and will not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms.”
The “Panorama” episode, which aired one week before the 2024 presidential election, spliced together two clips from the speech, creating the impression that Trump had said, “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
BBC Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness announced their resignations on Nov. 9 after fallout from the scandal.
“I wanted to let you know that I have decided to leave the BBC after 20 years,” Davie wrote in a letter to staff members on Nov. 9.
“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.”
Trump praised Turness’s and Davie’s decisions to exit the BBC in a Truth Social post on the same day.
“The TOP people in the BBC, including TIM DAVIE, the BOSS, are all quitting/FIRED, because they were caught ‘doctoring’ my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th,” Trump wrote.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at his weekly question and answer session in the House of Commons on Nov. 12 that the public broadcaster, which is mostly funded by a compulsory fee, should “get [its] house in order.”
