BBC apologises to Trump for 2024 documentary but rejects defamation claim

The BBC apologised to Trump for a misleading edit but denies defamation. Photo / Getty Images

The British Broadcasting Corporation has said it apologised to President Donald Trump after he threatened to sue the media organisation over an episode of the documentary series Panorama, which he said misleadingly spliced together his remarks on January 6, 2021, to show him explicitly encouraging violence at the US Capitol.

“Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday,” the BBC wrote in a statement.

“BBC Chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the Corporation are sorry for the edit of the President’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme.”

The episode, Trump: A Second Chance?, which aired in October 2024, is not available on the BBC’s website, and the broadcaster said Thursday it has no plans to rebroadcast it.

The organisation rejected any legal claim over the edit, however.

“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” it said.

The Telegraph, a British newspaper, obtained and published a whistleblower report by Michael Prescott, a former BBC editorial standards adviser, alleging unfair editing and a series of other instances of bias at the United Kingdom broadcasting giant.

BBC director general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness resigned this week amid criticism.

The White House declined to comment, referring the Washington Post to Trump’s legal team. A representative for Trump’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the apology would ward off the threat of a $1 billion (NZ$1.77 billion) lawsuit

Jonathan Peters, associate dean at University of Georgia’s journalism school, said the President would face a daunting task in suing the BBC for defamation in the United States.

“Even if Trump could point to inaccuracies in the documentary, mere mistakes are not enough; he’d need evidence that the BBC at least subjectively doubted the truth of what it published,” Peters wrote in an email.

“And even if Trump prevailed by some cosmic coincidence, there’s no way he could prove $1 billion in damages.”

Mark Stephens, a lawyer at the London-based firm Howard Kennedy, said Trump would face a “pretty insurmountable” challenge if he tried to sue in the UK given the relevant statute of limitation.

“He had one year until October 28, 2025, to launch his claim,” he said.

“So he’s about two weeks out of time.”

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