Two top officials at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stepped down Sunday following criticism of the way the British public broadcaster edited a speech delivered by President Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, in a documentary last year.
BBC Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness both left the organization, according to the BBC, the United Kingdom’s publicly funded national broadcaster.
Davie said in a letter to staff that leaving the organization “is entirely my decision” and that he was “working through exact timings with the Board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months.”
“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” Davie said in the letter.
Turness similarly said she had to take responsibility amid the public controversy, even as she defended the organization against claims of institutional bias.
In a note to staff, Turness said the controversy surrounding the Trump documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love.”
“As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me,” she wrote in her letter. “In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down.”
“While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong,” she added.
The BBC has faced scrutiny for the editing of a documentary that critics say was misleading and cut out part of Trump’s speech before the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol in which the president encouraged supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
According to a clip reported by The Daily Telegraph, the speech in the BBC documentary quoted Trump saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
In a transcript of Trump’s speech that day, however, the president made those remarks, but not consecutively.
Trump said, at the time: “Now, it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.”
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” he continued.
Nearly an hour later, Trump said, “And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”
The Hill has reached out to the BBC for comment.
Trump celebrated news of the top BBC officials’ resignations.
“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,” Trump wrote on Sunday on his Truth Social platform.
“Thank you to The Telegraph for exposing these Corrupt ‘Journalists,’” he continued. “These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election. On top of everything else, they are from a Foreign Country, one that many consider our Number One Ally. What a terrible thing for Democracy!”
The Associated Press contributed.
Source: The Hill
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