UK minister says claims BBC misled viewers with Trump edit ‘incredibly serious’
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — A United Kingdom (UK) government minister on Sunday described as “incredibly serious” allegations over the way the BBC edited clips of US President Donald Trump in a flagship documentary programme.
The comments by Culture, Media and Sport Minister Lisa Nandy came as the broadcaster said its chair Samir Shah would provide an explanation to a parliamentary committee on Monday.
Media outlets, including the BBC, reported Sunday that the response was expected to include an apology.
The concerns regard clips spliced together from sections of the US president’s speech on January 6, 2021 that made it appear he 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 the vote which saw him ousted after his first term in office.
“The BBC chairman will provide a full response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Monday,” a BBC spokesperson said.
The edit was included in a documentary entitled “Trump: A Second Chance?”, which was broadcast by the BBC the week before last year’s US election.
– ‘Bias’ allegation –
Nandy said the Trump edit was one of a number of concerns about editorial standards at the BBC.
“It isn’t just about the Panorama programme, although that is incredibly serious, 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 told BBC television in an interview.
Nandy added that 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 earlier 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 the “materially misleading” programme whose child narrator was later revealed to be the son of Hamas’s former deputy minister of agriculture.
