The BBC put out a Panorama documentary in 2024 that contained an edit of the President’s January 6 speech. The edit cut together two parts of the speech in a way that made the “fight like hell” line follow more directly than it actually did, dropping the part where he told the crowd to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard. It was a bad edit. Internal BBC reviewers had flagged it. The note got buried. The documentary aired. The President’s lawyers, a year later, found it, and the BBC had a problem.
The director general, Tim Davie, resigned on Sunday. The head of news, Deborah Turness, resigned the same day. The BBC issued a personal apology in writing.
Hon. That is what accountability looks like at a real news organization. People lose their jobs. Apologies go on letterhead. The mistake gets fixed.
What it does not look like is the President’s response, which arrived through his personal lawyer, asking for one billion dollars. Then five billion dollars. From a publicly funded British broadcaster. For an edit of a public speech the President had himself given, on tape, that anyone in the world could watch in full.
The harm here is hard to quantify because the speech is, in fact, the document. You can watch the unedited speech on YouTube. You have been able to watch it for almost five years. The President’s reputation is his speech, and his speech is preserved. The BBC’s edit was journalistically wrong and journalistically embarrassing, and the BBC said so, and two of its top officers walked the plank for it.
A billion dollars is not the cost of an apology. A billion dollars is what you ask for when you are using the apology as an opening bid. There is a name for that, and it is in the dictionary right next to “Atlantic City circa 1989.”
You ever notice how the people who lose the most for being lied about always seem to be doing fine and the lawsuit is for a billion dollars anyway.
That ought to concern you.
The breakdown.
- Factual basis The Panorama edit was real and badly done; the BBC apologized.14/25
- Self-awareness The lawsuit demand of $1B-$5B is not in the same universe as the harm.5/20
- Staff containment His personal lawyer made the demand on personal letterhead, with the threat to sue televised.8/20
- Recovery attempt BBC apologized to the President in writing. The legal threat continued.5/15
- Public spectacle Front page of every UK paper for a week.14/20
Was this dumb enough?
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