BBC doctored a second Donald Trump speech, bombshell leaked memo reveals
The BBC, already under fire for doctoring a speech by Donald Trump in Panorama, also spliced his words in an episode of Newsnight to make him seem to encourage his followers to riot
BBC Newsnight doctored a speech by US President Donald Trump and ignored concerns about it, according to The Telegraph. Spliced footage of the speech, aired in 2022, made Mr Trump seem to provoke his supporters to riot in the January 6 unrest.
In the Newsnight segment, broadcast on June 9, 2022, Trump appears to say: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women – and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell you aren’t gonna have a country any more.”
By linking two separate sentences, the clip suggests that Trump was directly telling his supporters to act violently, just like the Panorama episode that has also cost the job of BBC director general Mr Tim Davie.
Lawyers for Mr Trump are now threatening to sue the BBC for $1bn (£760m) over the Panorama edit. After The Telegraph exposed the doctored footage aired on Panorama and other concerns about bias, Mr Davie and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News, both resigned.
The new disclosure could prompt fresh questions about the future of Jonathan Munro, Ms Turness’s deputy, who has been put in charge of the BBC’s overall news operation since her departure. At the time of the broadcast, Mr Munro was interim director of news and current affairs with ultimate responsibility for Newsnight.
Jonathan Munro has so far emerged as an unexpected winner from the BBC bias crisis. As senior controller of news content, he was second-in-command to Deborah Turness until her resignation.
The 59-year-old -who earns just over £300,000 a year – has now been placed in charge of the entire news division. But his new role has raised eyebrows because Mr Munro defended the editing of Donald Trump’s speech by Panorama in internal meetings.
A memo leaked to The Telegraph revealed that he dismissed the doctoring of the speech when concerns were first raised, saying it was “normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips”. The revelation that Newsnight also carried out a similar edit is likely to raise further questions given Mr Munro was at the time interim director of news and current affairs with ultimate responsibility for the programme.
The executive has also been connected to two previous high-profile incidents that damaged the BBC’s reputation since joining in 2014. He was head of newsgathering when a helicopter was deployed to film the home of Sir Cliff Richard during a police raid in 2014.
The BBC was forced to pay out £2 million to Sir Cliff after he sued the corporation for invasion of privacy. In 2016, he supported the re-appointment of Martin Bashir to the BBC and lavished praise on his “enterprising journalism”.
Bashir was later disgraced after a report found he used “deceitful conduct” to obtain a 1995 interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.A A BBC spokesperson told the Daily Star: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards.
“This matter has been brought to our attention and we are now looking into it.”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletters.
