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“The British Broadcasting Corporation sent a personal apology to U.S. President Donald Trump [last] Thursday but said there was no legal basis for him to sue the public broadcaster over a documentary his lawyers called defamatory. The documentary, which aired on the BBC's ‘Panorama’ news programme just before the U.S. presidential election in 2024, spliced together three parts of Trump's speech on January 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the Capitol. The edit created the impression he had called for violence… Lawyers for the U.S. president threatened [last] Sunday to sue the BBC for damages of up to $1 billion.” Reuters
“The BBC's boss and its head of news quit [earlier this month] following accusations of bias at the British broadcaster… The publicly funded BBC had been under mounting pressure after an internal report by a former standards adviser, which cited failings in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, transgender issues and a speech made by Trump, was leaked to the Daily Telegraph newspaper…
“The report was written by Michael Prescott, a former political editor of the Sunday Times, who was an independent adviser to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board for three years before he left in June. He compiled a dossier for the BBC's board after he said bosses had ‘repeatedly failed’ to tackle what he described as multiple examples of an institutional bias.” Reuters
The left defends the BBC, arguing that all news organizations occasionally make mistakes.
“You can’t be in the news business and avoid mistakes. That’s why responsible media organizations correct their errors and acknowledge them to the public. It’s why newsroom leaders take steps, internally, to repair broken processes. It’s why they sometimes go so far as to apologize or take stories down… The BBC certainly has messed up, but as a news organization it remains essential, not just in the United Kingdom but in America and beyond…
“‘You would never guess from the sometimes hysterical coverage of the past week that the BBC remains quite easily the most trusted news organization in the UK,’ wrote former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger in Prospect. The BBC is also extremely well regarded in America, he notes, ‘the second most trusted news source – just behind the Weather Channel’… It [should] defend itself, in court, and to the public.”
Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian
“[Trump’s] Florida lawyers’ letter was little more than bluster. The programme had not even been broadcast in the United States and was not formally available on iPlayer. There was no evidence that anyone in the US watched the programme or was even aware of it… Indeed, rather than suffering any obvious harm, Trump was re-elected as president days after the broadcast…
“The BBC offered an apology and a retraction. This was right and proper, given the breach of broadcasting standards. The BBC should not defend the indefensible. When mistakes are made apologies and retractions should follow. The BBC, however, has refused to pay any damages, either of one billion dollars or at all. This also is right and proper. There was no sound legal basis for a claim for money.”
David Allen Green, New Statesman
“Trump does not care about the Panorama edit. This is just the latest broadside against media organisations that threaten him. Like the old mafia political boss he can be, he seeks to cow and frighten…
“US media company after US media company have submitted to the old don, usually because they had other commercial or regulatory interests which mattered more to them than the cost of some modest tribute money and bowing and scraping. The BBC has no such concern; the only thing at stake is its reputation. It should apologise for the edit, but go no further.”
Lewis Goodall, New Statesman
The right criticizes the BBC, arguing that its coverage has become heavily biased.
The right criticizes the BBC, arguing that its coverage has become heavily biased.
“Mr. Trump is up in arms because an episode of the Panorama television news show last year spliced together two snippets of his Jan. 6, 2021, speech that he uttered nearly an hour apart. The point was to suggest to viewers that Mr. Trump had urged supporters to storm the Capitol…
“The same program showed footage of the Proud Boys marching to Capitol Hill after it aired the fake clip from Mr. Trump’s speech, creating the impression they had heeded his call to action. But that Proud Boy footage was shot before Mr. Trump started speaking that day. Forget media bias—this is an alternate dimension of reality.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Over the years, viewers have noticed what the Standards Board failed to grasp. It is strange to hear BBC hosts talk around the truth about Hamas — a consequence of the BBC ruling that the group cannot be referred to as ‘terrorists.’ Plenty of viewers quietly laughed when, earlier this year, newscaster Martine Croxall rolled her eyes and reworded ‘pregnant people’ to ‘women’ live on the air…
“Yet internally, she was found to have broken the rules. And no one has forgotten the BBC’s viral tweet in the summer of 2020: ‘27 police officers injured during largely peaceful anti-racism protests in London.’ This is how the national broadcaster described people lobbing glass bottles and flares at British police — the vast majority of whom do not carry guns.”
Kate Andrews, Washington Post
“A BBC Arabic regular, Ahmed Qannan, who described a gunman who killed four civilians and an Israeli police officer as a ‘hero,’ appeared 217 times on the channel between February 2024 and April 2025. Introduced as a journalist from Gaza, he appeared both on BBC Arabic radio and Gaza Today. Ahmed Alagha, who described Israelis as less than human and Jews as ‘devils,’ appeared 522 times.”
Melanie Phillips, Free Press
“Such was the extent of its Israelophobic misinformation that the BBC has been forced to correct two stories about Gaza every single week since Oct. 7, 2023. Essentially, the broadcaster became a mouthpiece for Hamas’s sickening propaganda, fueling antisemitism in the UK and around the world. The BBC loves to pose as an island of truth in a swirling sea of digital misinformation. Yet we now know it is a font of falsehoods.”
Brendan O'Neill, New York Post
