BBC must fight, says outgoing chief as Trump threatens to sue

The outgoing director general of the BBC, who resigned over a misleading edit of a speech by US President Donald Trump, said "we've got to fight for our journalism" in a staff call on November 11. Photo / Adrian Dennis, AFP

The BBC’s outgoing boss urged staff to “fight” for its journalism, as the British broadcaster grappled with how to respond to US President Donald Trump’s threat to sue over a misleading edit.

Tim Davie’s rallying cry came after Trump threatened the BBC with a US$1 billion lawsuit in a row that has renewed pressure on an organisation that is regularly used as a political football and often caught up in culture wars.

The controversy also lifted the lid on tensions at the top of the renowned institution over the coverage of issues including the war in Gaza, and put the British Government in a tricky spot with its closest ally.

“I see the free press under pressure, I see the weaponisation. I think we’ve got to fight for our journalism,” outgoing director-general Davie reportedly told staff two days after he and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness resigned over the furore.

This week, the BBC apologised for giving the impression that Trump had directly urged “violent action” just before the assault on the US Capitol by his supporters in 2021 in a documentary that aired in October last year.

Trump’s lawyers wrote a letter to the BBC, giving it until Friday to “appropriately compensate” the President for “harm caused” by the edit, or face a $1 billion legal case.

In his address to staff, Davie admitted the broadcaster had made “some mistakes that have cost us” and conceded that times were “difficult”, the BBC reported.

The publicly funded BBC has faced growing accusations of bias from different ideological camps.

Board divisions

The latest crisis, which spiralled after the Daily Telegraph last week leaked a memo by former BBC adviser Michael Prescott, has also laid bare some of the divisions within the BBC and its board.

In his report, Prescott raised concerns about issues including anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service, coverage of Gaza, and its reporting on trans issues.

In a public apology for the Trump speech edit, BBC chair Samir Shah said the broadcaster had taken steps to address other issues in Prescott’s memo, vowing to reform oversight within the organisation.

Some current and former BBC journalists have blamed right-wing board members for leading the charge that the BBC is “institutionally biased” – an allegation that Turness denied.

However, Mark Urban, a former BBC editor and presenter, suggested in a blog that “culture wars” and liberal voices were also at fault for the lapses.

The row comes at a politically sensitive time for the BBC, which is due to renegotiate the Royal Charter that outlines the corporation’s governance. Its current charter will end in 2027.

Davie said that despite recent controversies – which have prompted calls for changing the licence-fee funding model that the BBC depends on – the broadcaster was in a “really good position to get a good charter”.

Culture Minister Lisa Nandy confirmed that the review would start before the end of the year.

She told Parliament that the BBC must “uphold the highest standards” but warned against “a sustained attack” on what she called the country’s “most widely used and trusted source of news”.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Government is performing a tightrope act between backing the public service broadcaster’s independence without seeming to take its side against Trump.

The US leader has been accused of waging a campaign to stifle US news and media organisations since returning to power in January.

His lawyers are threatening to sue the BBC in Florida – they would be too late to file a lawsuit in the UK, where there is generally a one-year time limit for bringing libel claims.

But Trump would face other challenges. Media and defamation lawyer Matthew Gill told AFP the Panorama documentary would probably have had a “very small audience” in the US, making it harder to prove harm caused to Trump.

-Agence France-Presse