London (HRNW)- The BBC has formally apologised to US President Donald Trump for the editing of his speech on Panorama on 6 January 2021.
However, it has rejected President Trump’s demands for compensation and said that it will not pay him any financial compensation.
The BBC said in a statement that the editing created the false impression that President Trump had directly encouraged violent action and clarified that the programme would not be re-broadcast.
It should be noted that Trump’s lawyers have threatened to claim $1 billion in damages against the BBC, demanding that the BBC apologise for its actions, make a formal correction and pay them financial compensation.
Following the controversy, BBC Director General Tim Davey and Head of News Deborah Terrence resigned from their posts on Sunday.
BBC News has requested a comment from the White House on the matter after the formal apology.
The BBC’s apology comes after a similar edited clip was broadcast on Newsnight in 2022, revealed by the Daily Telegraph.
The BBC issued a statement in its Corrections and Clarifications section on Thursday evening, saying the Panorama programme had been reviewed following criticism.
The statement said: “We accept that our editing created the impression that we were showing a sequence of President Trump’s speech, even though they were excerpts from different parts of the speech, and that this gave the wrong impression that President Trump was directly calling for violent action.”
The BBC’s lawyers sent a written response to a letter received by President Trump’s legal team on Sunday.
A BBC spokesperson said that BBC Chair Samar Shah had sent a separate personal letter to the White House, making it clear to President Trump that the BBC and he apologised for the editing of the President’s speech of 6 January 2021.
He added that while the BBC deeply regrets the editing, we strongly disagree that any claim of defamation arises in this matter.
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