President Trump threatens BBC with $1bn lawsuit over Panorama speech edit

British broadcaster BBC's crisis takes a new turn as U.S. President Donald Trump's lawyers have written to the organisation threatening a $1bn lawsuit if it does not retract Panorama documentary.

The letter which was obtained by the BBC's US partner CBS News warns that "The BBC is on notice". 

The BBC also reports that the letter sets out three demands namely: 

- Immediately issue a full and fair retraction of the documentary and any and all other false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about President Trump in as conspicuous a manner as they were originally published
- Immediately issue an apology for the false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading, and inflammatory statements about President Trump
- Appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.

This comes as BBC Chairman Samir Shah apologised for "an error of judgement" in the editing of Trump's speech in one of its Panorama documentaries. 

The publicly funded broadcaster has been embroilled in allegations of bias after the Daily Telegraph published details from a leaked internal memo by a former standards adviser which saw its Chief Tim Davies and head of News Deborah Turness resign. 

The report highlighted shortcomings in the BBC's coverage of the Israel–Hamas conflict, transgender issues, and its handling of Trump's remarks.

Key findings from the memo, which was written by Michael Prescott to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, include:

TRUMP PROGRAMME

Prescott said that an edition of the BBC's flagship Panorama show broadcast a week before the U.S. election, "Trump: A Second Chance?", "seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance", noting that critics of Trump far outnumbered his supporters.

The programme spliced together two separate excerpts from one of Trump's speeches, creating the impression that he was inciting the January 2021 Capitol Hill riot, he said.

Trump was shown telling his supporters that "we're going to walk down to the Capitol" and that they would "fight like hell", a comment he made in a different part of his speech. He had actually said his supporters would "cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women".

ISRAEL-HAMAS COVERAGE

Prescott noted that several contributors to the BBC's Arabic service had selectively covered stories critical of Israel.

On one occasion, the BBC's main English-language news site published 19 separate articles about the hostages taken by Hamas on the day of the October 7 attack in 2023, while BBC Arabic published none. By contrast, every article critical of Israel that appeared on the BBC News website was also featured on BBC Arabic.

The memo also highlighted that while BBC Arabic often ran the same stories as the BBC's English-language website, there were significant differences in tone, headlines, and emphasis, with coverage generally more critical of Israel.

Prescott also criticised the BBC for allegedly misreporting the proportion of Palestinian women and children killed by Israeli military actions, as well as for inaccurately portraying the likelihood of children facing starvation under Israel's aid blockade.

TRANSGENDER COVERAGE

Prescott claimed that stories raising "difficult questions" about transgender issues were often overlooked, even when they had been widely reported and debated by other media outlets. He also noted that some features presented the transgender experience in an overly one-sided manner, lacking sufficient balance and objectivity.

The memo also noted that the BBC failed to cover certain stories, including a case in which a group of nurses sued their employer for permitting biological males to use their changing room.

IMMIGRATION ISSUES AND HISTORIANS

Prescott noted that the BBC sent few push notifications about illegal migrants or asylum seekers to its 7 million news app users, even as less significant stories received extensive coverage.

The memo also said that producers of four BBC programmes with historical content favoured non-expert academics who offered quotable sound bites on racism and prejudice, producing oversimplified and distorted narratives about British colonialism, slavery, and their legacy.

RACISM

Prescott wrote in his memo that the BBC "fell too easily for putting out ill-researched material that suggested issues of racism when there were none". He cited a report claiming that people living in areas with a high proportion of ethnic minority residents paid more for car insurance, even though road accident and crime rates were similar.

He noted that the reporting and commentary ignored other factors that can influence insurance costs, relied on outdated and unsuitable data, and featured only one guest who supported the claim. The Association of British Insurers declined to appear, and its statement, which provided crucial context, was selectively quoted. The report was later taken down.

But the outgoing CEO of News Deborah Turness has said this morning the organisation "is not institutionally biased" as has been repeatedly alleged.

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