BBC apologises to Trump over Panorama edit but refuses to pay compensation

The BBC has apologized to US President Donald Trump for an episode of Panorama that edited together parts of a speech, but has rejected his demands for compensation.

The company said the edit gave “the erroneous impression that President Trump had issued a direct call for violent action” and said it would no longer broadcast the program.

Trump’s lawyers have threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn (£759m) in damages unless the corporation retracts, apologizes and compensates him.

The fallout from the scandal led to the resignations of the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and head of news, Deborah Turness.

The BBC has contacted the White House for comment.

The apology comes after a second, similarly edited clip, broadcast on Newsnight in 2022, was revealed by the Daily Telegraph.

In its Corrections and Clarifications section, published on Thursday evening, the BBC said the Panorama program had been revised after criticism of the way Trump’s speech had been edited.

“We accept that our editing unintentionally gave the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than snippets from different points in the speech, and that this gave the erroneous impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” it said.

BBC lawyers have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday, a BBC spokesperson said.

“BBC Chairman Samir Shah separately sent a personal letter to the White House making it clear to President Trump that he and the corporation were sorry for the alteration of the President’s January 6, 2021 speech, which was included in the program,” they said.

The BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any platform, the spokesperson said.

“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the music video was edited, we strongly disagree that a defamation claim has merit.”

In his speech on January 6, 2021, Trump said: “We are going to march down to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our courageous senators, congressmen and congresswomen.

More than 50 minutes later, in his speech, he said: “And we are fighting. We are fighting like hell.”

On 2024’s Panorama, the clip shows him saying, “We’re going to go down to the Capitol…and I’ll be there with you. And we’re fighting. We’re fighting like hell.”

Speaking to Fox News, Trump said his speech on January 6, 2021, was “butchered” and the manner in which it was presented “defrauded” viewers.

The BBC received the letter from Trump’s lawyers on Sunday. It demands a “full and fair withdrawal” of the documentary, an apology and that the BBC “appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused”.

It set a deadline of 10 p.m. GMT (5 p.m. EST) on Friday for the company to respond.

In its letter to Trump’s legal team, the BBC lays out five main arguments for why it does not believe it has a case to answer.

First, he claims that the BBC did not have the rights and did not distribute the Panorama episode on its American channels.

When the documentary was available on BBC iPlayer, it was geographically limited to viewers in the United Kingdom.

Second, he claims that the documentary did not harm Trump since he was re-elected.

Third, he claims that the clip was not designed to mislead, but simply to shorten a long speech, and that the editing was not done maliciously.

Fourth, he asserts that the clip was never meant to be considered in isolation. Rather, it was 12 seconds within an hour-long program, which also contained many voices support Trump.

Finally, opinion on a matter of public concern and political speech are strongly protected by defamation laws in the United States.

A person close to the BBC said that internally there is strong confidence in the arguments made by the corporation and in its defense.

Earlier on Thursday, the BBC was accused of another misleading edit of Trump’s speech from January 6, 2021, two years before the Panorama footage was broadcast.

In a 2022 Newsnight show, the set-up is a little different to Panorama.

Trump is shown saying: “We’re going to march down to the Capitol. And we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and congresswomen. And we’re going to fight. We’re going to fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore.”

This was followed by a voiceover from presenter Kirsty Wark saying “and they fought” over footage of the Capitol riots.

In response to the video shown on the same show, former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who left a diplomatic post and became a critic of Trump after calling the Jan. 6 riots an “attempted coup,” said the video “stuck” Trump’s speech.

“That line about ‘we fight and we fight like hell’ is actually later in the speech and yet your video makes it seem like those two things came together,” he said.

In response to Thursday’s Telegraph article, a BBC spokesperson said the BBC held itself to the “highest editorial standards” and the matter was under review.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team told the Telegraph that it was “now clear that the BBC has engaged in a smear campaign against President Trump.”