The BBC may well need structural reform. It is too big and too unwieldy for one man like Tim Davie to control. But that has nothing to do with the current faked-up crisis over Panorama’s reporting of a speech by Donald Trump.
Editing has a purpose. And all editing changes an original. It reduces the full length of something to a short item which gives the gist and is easily accessible and understandable. If you edit a football match to show the goals, it does not mean that the match consisted only of goals. If you edit a speech to give the key points, that does not mean that the speech contains nothing but those points. In short, you get the highlights.
The BBC’s edit of Donald Trump’s speech on 6 January may not have been well done. It may have been clumsy. It may seem to suggest that he directly incited violence on Capitol Hill. Nor did it do any harm because, as the BBC itself points out, it was not broadcast in the United States and Trump was elected President eight days after it was broadcast in the UK.
But – and it is a big but – over half of the American public and most of the British public believe that he did advocate violence. So why should Panorama not reflect that belief?
The Panorama programme at issue was broadcast in October 2024. So why has it all come to a head now? The simple answer is that the whole thing has been artificially blown out of proportion by the political right. The Farages, Badenochs, and Jenricks of this world loathe the BBC because it asks questions that they don’t want to answer. Even though the BBC board has at least two members with impeccable right-wing credentials, the right still accuse the organisation of bias because it does not fall under direct political control and they dislike entities which they cannot control. They know that the BBC charter negotiations are about to begin and they want the Corporation to appear in the weakest possible light.
As for the orange-haired narcissist across the Atlantic, he has already cut funds for public service broadcasting in the US, and he will always sue anyone who appears to criticise him. But his current attack on the BBC comes at a moment he is desperate to distract attention from his struggles not to release the Epstein files. And he loves interfering in other people’s business. Not content with suing the BBC over this minor editing issues – and it is a very minor issue – he has now decided to object to the BBC’s choice as this year’s Reith lecturer, Ruter Bregman, because Bregman is someone else who has criticised him.
The whole controversy, the whole media storm is artificial. And the one thing it is not about is the Panorama edit of Donald Trump’s speech.
The BBC is far from perfect. But you only have to look at Fox News or GB News to realise that the alternatives are horrific.
