BBC The approach to editing television news programs should not be changed after a failed Donald Trump Panorama a splice that led to a $10 billion lawsuit from the US president, the review found.
Peter JohnstonBBC's head of editorial standards, has spent the last few weeks studying the irritation Michael Prescott A detailed memo, a memo that exposed the contradictions surrounding Trump's newsroom and led to the departure of the CEO and news chief. Trump's legal threat concerns Panorama edited to make it appear Trump incited violence during the Jan. 6 riots.
Despite the editing having led to one of the BBC's biggest crises in recent years, Johnston recommended no changes to the editing rules, instead saying: “We will ensure the current rules are strengthened.”
These guidelines state that the BBC should not generally:
- dramatize or re-enact an action or events that are significant to the development of the action or narrative.
- in-betweens and sequences if the resulting juxtaposition of the material leads to a materially misleading impression of the events.
They add that “commentary and editing should never be used to give audiences a false impression of events or contributions.” We asked the BBC whether it would refrain from updating these recommendations in light of Johnston's findings.
“Key focus of public reaction and complaints after leak [Prescott] “The BBC has now made it clear that the editing inadvertently created the impression that we were showing a single continuous segment of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this created the erroneous impression that President Trump was making a direct call for violent action.” The BBC has apologized for this error.”
This decision may be viewed with interest by the Trump team. Trump is suing the BBC in Florida for $10 billion over what he called “a false, defamatory, misleading, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious portrayal of President Trump.” The BBC said it would defend the case but would not comment further. Prescott previously said The splicing did not damage the president's reputation.
Johnston said the BBC “took more action than Prescott admitted in his note”. He added that “the work continues and actions have been taken to broaden the base of our U.S. coverage and expand the range of voices and perspectives under the leadership of new committed senior leadership in Washington.”
Remove Samir Shah from the editorial committee
Meanwhile, a separate review of the Editorial Committee, the Guidelines and Standards Committee, of which Prescott was previously considered a member and from which so many of these problems arose, recommended that BBC chairman Samir Shah be removed from the committee.
According to this review by BBC board member Caroline Thomson and formerBBC News Boss Richard Sambrook, who chairs the committee, “was identified as a problem as it eliminates any opportunity to bring matters to the attention of the Board as the roles of the chairman are conflicting.”
Thomson and Sambrook suggest that the chairman should only intervene once editorial problems have escalated.
The committee's response to Trump's newsroom and the dual resignations of CEO Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness was heavily criticized for its slow pace, although Shah received strong support from the board of directors.
In a recommendation that echoes the BBC satirical comedy. B1A, Sambrook and Thomson suggested that the Editorial Committee, Guidelines and Standards change its name to the Standards Editorial Committee because it is a “shorter and more recognizable name.”
