BBC accused of deceptively editing Donald Trump’s January 6 speech in leaked memo

According to an internal whistleblower memo obtained by The Telegraph, the BBC “edited” a speech by US President Donald Trump to make it appear as though he was encouraging the Capitol riot.

The Panorama program, broadcast a week before the US elections, “completely misled” viewers by showing the president telling his supporters he would march with them to the Capitol to “fight like hell,” when he had actually said he would walk with them to “peacefully and patriotically make your voice heard.”

The “distorted” footage was highlighted in a 19-page dossier on the BBC’s “bias.” This file was compiled by a new member of the corporation’s standards committee and is now circulating within government departments.

The dossier argues that the program made the president “say things he never said” by combining footage from the beginning of the US president’s speech with words he spoke about an hour later.

The file alleges that senior executives and the BBC chairman ignored and dismissed a series of serious complaints raised by the corporation’s own standards watchdog.

Following the leak of the report, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., accused the BBC of dishonesty and of producing “fake news.”

Sharing The Telegraph’s story on X, Trump Jr. said, “The FAKE NEWS ‘reporters’ in the UK are just as dishonest and sick as they are in America!”

The Telegraph will soon publish other sections of the memo, which claim that the BBC’s Arabic service acted with bias in its coverage of the war in Gaza and that the corporation applied “effective censorship” in its reporting on the transgender debate.

The document raises serious questions about the BBC’s culture, how this affects its impartiality, and accuses executives, including director-general Tim Davie, of turning a blind eye to evidence of bias.

Conservatives have demanded an urgent investigation into how the Panorama program was allowed to be broadcast.

Shadow culture secretary Nigel Huddleston said:

“These are extremely alarming revelations that could seriously damage the BBC’s brand and reputation. The BBC license fee is justified on the basis of impartiality and trust. There can be no justification for this kind of deliberate manipulation and dissemination of misinformation. This is not the first time evidence of bias at the BBC has emerged, but this is one of the most striking and concerning examples to date. License fee payers expect an urgent explanation and apology from the BBC, and this scandal needs to be thoroughly investigated.”

In addition to altering Trump’s words, the documentary showed people waving flags and marching on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, after the president’s speech, creating the impression that “Trump’s supporters had heeded his ‘call to arms,’” but this footage was actually filmed before Trump began speaking.

The report suggests that because Panorama’s “distortion of the day’s events” was so blatant, viewers are asking, “Why should the BBC be trusted, and where will all this lead?”

When the issue was raised with executives, they “did not accept that standards had been breached.” The report’s author later warned BBC chairman Samir Shah about the “very, very dangerous precedent” set by Panorama but received no response.

The whistleblower sent a copy of the 19-page letter to all members of the BBC Board last month.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson described the revelation as a “total disgrace.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage commented, “It is hardly surprising that the number of people paying the BBC license fee is falling every year.”