LONDON (AP) — Outgoing BBC Director-General Tim Davie has left a broadcast institution in turmoil after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to sue over the way his speech was edited in a documentary.
The publicly funded broadcaster is facing its most serious crisis in years over accusations of bias and misleading editing of Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.
The BBC’s chair apologized for an “error of judgment,” and both Davie and head of news Deborah Turness resigned on Sunday.
Davie, who had spent two decades at the BBC, oversaw a series of controversies at the corporation during his five-year tenure as director general.
A look at some of the scandals during Davie’s tenure and how the latest one unfolded:
2021
Davie apologizes after a report found that former BBC journalist Martin Bashir had used fake bank records to deceive Princess Diana’s brother to land his explosive interview with her in 1995. Davie, who was not at the BBC at the time the program was made, issued a “full and unconditional” apology.
July 2023
Huw Edwards, the broadcaster’s highest paid news anchor, is suspended with full pay over allegations he paid a teen for sexually explicit photos. He later pleaded guilty and was given a suspended prison sentence for having unrelated images of child sexual abuse on his phone.
Oct. 28, 2024
The BBC airs a “Panorama” documentary titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” about a week before the U.S. presidential election.
December 2024
The BBC faces questions on how it deals with complaints against its presenters following allegations of inappropriate conduct against Gregg Wallace, a longtime co-presenter on the popular cooking contest show “MasterChef.” Wallace was later sacked after a report upheld claims made against him by multiple women.
May
Gary Lineker, the England soccer great-turned-media celebrity, says he is leaving his role as the BBC’s highest-paid presenter after he faced criticism for reposting an Instagram story about Zionism that featured a picture of a rat.
This summer
Michael Prescott, an external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee, raises concerns over “institutional bias” at the BBC in an internal memo to the board. It highlights the way clips of Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, speech were spliced together, so they appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell,” omitting a section where the president said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully. The memo also highlighted other issues including the BBC Arabic Service’s reporting on the war in Gaza and the “censoring” of coverage of transgender people by some BBC reporters.
June
BBC is condemned for livestreaming a performance by rap punk duo Bob Vylan, who led crowds at the Glastonbury Festival in chanting “death” to the Israeli military. The BBC’s complaints unit later found the broadcast broke editorial guidelines in relation to harm and offense, though it was cleared of breaching impartiality rules or being likely to incite or encourage crime.
October
Britain’s media regulator sanction s the BBC for a “materially misleading” documentary on the lives of children in Gaza because it failed to disclose that the father of the teenage narrator held a position in the Hamas administration.
Nov. 3
The right-leaning Daily Telegraph newspaper begins publishing a series of details from Prescott’s memo.
Nov. 7
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tells the Telegraph the BBC is “100% fake news” and that British taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a “leftist propaganda machine.”
Nov. 9
Davie and Turness resign. Trump posts on social media: “These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election.”
Nov. 10
BBC Chair Samir Shah apologizes for an “error of judgment” in the “Panorama” edit of Trump’s speech. The BBC says Trump has sent a letter threatening legal action over the “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements,” demanding the broadcaster ”appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused,” or face legal action for $1 billion in damages.
