BBC Apologizes to Trump for Speech Edit but Rejects Defamation Claim

The BBC apologized to President Trump on Thursday for the way it edited his Jan. 6, 2021, speech in a documentary, but said it does not accept that the edit defamed him. Chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House saying he and the corporation are “sorry for the edit of the President’s speech,” according to CBS News and PBS NewsHour.

The BBC said the edit “unintentionally created the impression” of a single continuous section of the speech, PBS reported, with the spliced parts coming almost an hour apart. PBS said the production company had spliced three quotes from two sections of the speech, and noted that legal experts have pointed out the documentary was not shown in the United States. The broadcaster said it “sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited,” CBS reported, but strongly disagrees that there is a basis for a defamation claim, a position PBS also reported. CBS reported that the reply made five main arguments.

Trump’s lawyers had demanded a full retraction, an apology and compensation, and threatened to sue for “no less than $1,000,000,000” over what they described as overwhelming financial and reputational harm, with a deadline of Friday, CBS and PBS reported. They alleged defamation over an episode of the BBC’s “Panorama” series, broadcast days before the 2024 presidential election, that they said misleadingly combined separate sections of the speech.

The apology follows the resignations on Sunday of Director-General Tim Davie and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, after the Daily Telegraph published parts of an internal dossier criticizing the BBC’s coverage, according to earlier reporting by NBC News and CBS. The edit removed a passage in which Trump told supporters he wanted them to protest peacefully, according to earlier reporting by NBC News and CBS.

NBC News reported on Monday that Trump’s legal team said it would seek $1 billion from the broadcaster, and that the BBC said it would respond directly.