BBC News : The BBC has apologised to US President Donald Trump for a Panorama episode that spliced parts of his 6 January 2021 speech together, but rejected his demands for compensation.
The corporation said the edit had given “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action” and said it would not show the 2024 programme again.
Lawyers for Trump have threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn (£759m) in damages unless the corporation issues a retraction, apologises and compensates him.
BBC News has approached the White House for comment.
The apology comes hours after a second similarly edited clip, broadcast on Newsnight in 2022, was revealed by the Daily Telegraph.
In its Corrections and Clarifications section, published on Thursday evening, the BBC said the Panorama programme had been reviewed after criticism of how Trump’s speech had been edited.
“We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” it said.
Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump’s legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday, a BBC spokesperson said.
“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,” they said.
They added: “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.”
The fallout from the scandal led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness on Sunday.
