BBC director general Tim Davie has resigned. Photo / Getty Images
The director general of the BBC has resigned after a row over the editing of a documentary about US President Donald Trump.
Tim Davie and the BBC’s head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned after accusations that a documentary by its flagship Panorama programme edited a speech by Trump in a misleading way.
“Like all public organisations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent and accountable,” Davie said.
“While not being the only reason, the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to my decision... I have to take ultimate responsibility.”
Davie’s departure comes a week after the Sunday Telegraph leaked an internal memo raising concerns about the documentary.
A Daily Telegraph report said concerns were first raised in the summer in a memo on impartiality by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee.
On the BBC’s website, Davie said: “Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility”.
Turness said that “the ongoing controversy” around the Panorama documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC”. She added that “the buck stops with me”.
The BBC website also published a response from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who posted two words on X in response to Davie and Turness resigning.
She posted two screenshots of news articles side by side. Above the first she wrote “shot” over a Telegraph article with the headline: “Trump goes to war with ‘fake news’ BBC”.
“Chaser” she writes above the second - a BBC News article announcing Tim Davie’s resignation.
Leavitt earlier called the BBC “100% fake news” in response to the Panorama documentary that misled viewers by editing Trump’s speech.
The BBC has promised a full response to Parliament’s culture media and sport committee on Monday (local time).
The UK Culture, Media and Sport Minister, Lisa Nandy, yesterday described the allegations as “incredibly serious”.
Nandy, posting on X, thanked Davie for his service to public broadcasting.
“He has led the BBC through a period of significant change and helped the organisation to grip the challenges it has faced in recent years,” she wrote.
“Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high-quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world.”
The criticism emerged over clips spliced together from sections of a Trump speech on January 6, 2021, when he was accused of fomenting the mob attack on the US Capitol seeking to keep him in power despite losing his re-election bid.
The edit made it appear he had told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them and “fight like hell”.
In the undoctored clip, however, the President urged the audience to walk with him “and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women”.
At the time, Trump was still disputing President Joe Biden’s election victory, in a vote that ousted him after his first term in office.
The edit was included in a documentary Trump: A Second Chance? that was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.
Nandy said the Trump edit was one of several concerns about editorial standards at the BBC.
“It isn’t just about the Panorama programme, although that is incredibly serious,” she told BBC television in an interview.
“There are a series of very serious allegations made, the most serious of which is that there is systemic bias in the way that difficult issues are reported at the BBC,” she said.
Nandy said she was concerned about a tendency for editorial standards and the language used in reports to be “entirely inconsistent” whether it be on “Israel, Gaza... trans people or on this issue about President Trump”.
The licence fee-funded broadcaster this year issued several apologies for “serious flaws” in the making of another documentary Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, broadcast in February.
In October, it accepted a sanction from the UK media watchdog for what was deemed a “materially misleading” programme, whose child narrator was later revealed to be the son of Hamas’ former deputy agriculture minister.
According to the BBC website, Davie became director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation in September 2020, after being chief executive of BBC Studios for seven years. He had worked for the BBC for 20 years.
He was the 17th person tasked with overseeing the corporation’s services as its editorial, operational and creative leader.
Before joining the BBC, Davie worked for organisations such as Procter and Gamble, and PepsiCo.
In 2018, he was appointed CBE for his services to international trade.
The website said Turness has been the CEO of BBC News since 2022, overseeing BBC News and Current Affairs programming.
She was previously CEO of ITN, and had led the organisation’s post-Covid strategy for growth, the BBC reported.
Before working at the BBC and ITN, she was president of NBC News from 2013 until 2017, and later president of NBC News International.
Before her stint at NBC, Turness was editor of ITV News where she was their first female editor and the youngest editor of ITV News.
The BBC said there was no information yet on when a new director general will be appointed.
- AFP/NZ Herald