The BBC has been plunged into a major crisis following the resignations of senior figures, a move that has drawn a fierce and immediate reaction from the White House and former President Donald Trump.
White House Condemns "Fake News" BBC
On Friday, the White House made its position clear, choosing to weigh in on the growing row. White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, used an interview with The Daily Telegraph to launch a stinging attack on the British broadcaster.
She stated, "This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100% fake news that should no longer be worth the time on the television screens of the great people of the United Kingdom."
Trump's Truth Social Reaction
The catalyst for the resignations was the revelation that a BBC Panorama report, broadcast just before the US election last year, had spliced together two parts of a long speech given by Donald Trump on 6 January 2021.
Following the news of the resignations, Mr Trump posted a lengthy statement on his platform, Truth Social. He wrote, "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."
He thanked The Telegraph for exposing what he called "Corrupt 'Journalists'" and accused them of trying to influence a presidential election, adding "What a terrible thing for Democracy!"
The Editing Scandal Explained
The internal memo, leaked by The Telegraph, revealed the specifics of the editing controversy. The Panorama report aired a clip that presented the following as one continuous sentence: "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."
However, this was not an accurate representation. The clip was constructed from two distinct parts of the speech that were spliced together, reordered, and covered with crowd pictures to hide the edit.
The full, unedited transcript shows a different context. The call to "walk down to the Capitol" was followed by the phrase "peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." The line "fight like hell" came approximately an hour later in the speech.
This editing decision has ignited a firestorm, raising serious questions about journalistic standards at the broadcaster. While there is ongoing debate about Mr Trump's role in the Capitol riot that unfolded on that day, this does not excuse the BBC's decision to manipulate the sequence of his words.
The fallout has been swift, with high-level resignations shaking the corporation and drawing international condemnation from the highest levels of American politics.
