An internal whistleblower memo has revealed that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) allegedly manipulated footage of former U.S. President Donald Trump's speech on January 6, 2021, to make it appear as though he incited the Capitol riot. The report, first published by The Daily Telegraph, drew sharp criticism from former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who called the act "utterly disgraceful."
The 19-page complaint, authored by Michael Prescott, a former advisor to the BBC's Standards Committee, is currently circulating within the UK government. It focuses on a video aired on BBC's Panorama program on October 28, 2023, just a week before the U.S. election. The edited clip showed Trump saying, "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and I'll be there with you... We're going to fight. We're going to fight like hell. If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," followed by footage of protesters marching toward the Capitol—without disclosing the edits or sequence alterations.
However, in the original speech, Trump initially stated, "We're going to walk down... I'll be there with you... We're going to the Capitol to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. But we're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country." Only after 54 minutes, when addressing election fraud, did he say, "We're going to fight like hell."
Prescott's complaint argues that the BBC's editing "created a false impression that Trump had said something he had not, constituting serious deception." He further questioned Panorama's distorted portrayal of events, asking, "Why should anyone trust the BBC anymore? Where does this end?" The document also criticizes the BBC's internal culture for fostering bias and ignoring complaints about impartiality breaches.
Donald Trump Jr. accused the BBC of dishonesty and spreading "fake news," sharing The Daily Telegraph's report on social media with the comment: "British fake news 'journalists' are just as dishonest as the American ones—total frauds!" The Telegraph noted that the scandal could worsen tensions between the BBC and the White House.
UK opposition Conservative Party has demanded an immediate investigation into Panorama's approval process. Shadow Culture Secretary Nigel Huddleston stated, "These revelations are deeply concerning and could severely damage the BBC's reputation. Deliberate misinformation is inexcusable. While the BBC has faced bias allegations before, this case is among the most egregious." Reform UK leader Nigel Farage remarked, "No wonder BBC license fee payers are dwindling."
Former BBC presenter Liz Kershaw commented on social media, "This doesn’t surprise me. Between 1993 and 2011, I hosted news and current affairs programs across four BBC radio stations. The entrenched bias and groupthink among BBC journalists were appalling—we had to challenge and correct it daily."
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