Two senior BBC executives — Tim Davie, Director-General of the BBC, and Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News — resigned the day before yesterday following the leak of a memo written by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser on BBC editorial policy, which was first published in The Telegraph.
The letter accuses the broadcaster of biased coverage on issues such as trans rights (pro-trans stance), the conflict in Gaza (pro-Palestinian stance), and the Trump presidency (anti-Trump stance).
In particular, it highlighted the “misleading” editing of a Trump interview in a Panorama documentary that aired in October 2024. The allegation concerns the splicing together of two separate remarks by Trump, made 50 minutes apart, into one continuous segment.
More than 400 million people worldwide rely on the BBC for news each week.
The BBC leadership issued an apology for the documentary, while the U.S. president threatened to file a $1 billion defamation lawsuit if the documentary is not withdrawn by Friday.
Sources within the BBC have described the removal of the executives as a “coup” and part of a broader effort to shift the organization’s coverage to the Right, according to reporting by The Guardian.
Sources: Τhe New York Times, BBC, Guardian
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