BBC Chairman Samir Shah told MPs on Monday he will not resign despite fierce criticism over the Panorama edit of US President Donald Trump’s speech, insisting, “I’m not somebody who walks away from a problem. I think my job is to fix it.”
Shah apologized for “the mistakes that have been made and the impact that has had” but said his role now is to “steady the ship, put it on even keel.” He also suggested creating a deputy director general post, saying the top job is “too big for one person.”
Panorama had spliced together two separate moments from Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech - his call for supporters to walk to the Capitol and, over 50 minutes later, the line “We fight. We fight like hell” - creating the impression they were delivered consecutively.
The controversy erupted after a leaked memo from former editorial adviser Michael Prescott, who warned of “systemic problems” in BBC News. Prescott told MPs he did not believe the corporation was institutionally biased but said problems were worsening.
The memo triggered the resignations of director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness earlier this month.
The BBC eventually published a correction acknowledging that the edit “gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” and confirmed the segment would not be rebroadcast. However, the broadcaster denied defamation and refused to pay damages.
Trump has announced he intends to sue the BBC for up to $5 billion over the editing of his speech.
Shah admitted on Monday the BBC was slow to apologize, saying, “Looking back, I think we should have made the decision earlier… I think there is an issue about how quickly we respond.”
In a Fox News interview which aired on Tuesday, Trump said when asked if he would sue the British broadcaster, “I think I have an obligation to do it because you can't allow people to do that. They defrauded the public and they've admitted it.”
In addition to the incident involving Trump’s speech, the BBC has continuously come under fire over its anti-Israel bias, which has reared its head even more since October 7, 2023.
In November of 2023, the corporation published an apology after falsely claiming that IDF troops were targeting medical teams in battles in and around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Before that, the BBC falsely accused Israel of being responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, which the IDF proved was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket. The network later acknowledged that “it was false to speculate” on the explosion.
Earlier this year, the BBC faced mounting scrutiny for using the son of a senior Hamas official as a narrator in its documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone.”
Following the criticism, the British broadcaster acknowledged that there were “serious flaws” in the program.
Several weeks ago, the BBC issued an apology after internal backlash over an email sent to staff referring to Hamas’s October 7 massacre as an “escalation.”