BBC were unwilling to listen to internal warnings about bias, says ex-presenter

The BBC controversy over the editing of a speech by Donald Trump came about as the corporation was “not willing” to listen to “the recommendations of their own internal system for checking bias”, a former presenter has claimed.

Mr Trump has threatened a one billion dollar lawsuit against the corporation after it aired an episode of Panorama featuring a speech from the US president that was edited in a way critics have said is misleading.

On Sunday, BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness and director-general Tim Davie announced their departure from the BBC after questions were raised about the edit in Michael Prescott’s report.

A memo by Mr Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, highlighted concerns about the way clips of Mr Trump’s speech on January 6 2021 were spliced together to make it appear he had told supporters he was going to walk to the US Capitol with them to “fight like hell”.

Mark Urban, former diplomatic editor of Newsnight, told Sky News: “This crisis has come about because the BBC, including Deborah Turness, were not willing to listen to and act sufficiently energetically upon the recommendations of their own internal system for checking bias.

“Now we saw that leaked memo, with a long list of things. I mean, we’ve all focused on the Trump interview, but you know, there was stuff about gender issues, there was stuff about race, there was stuff about Gaza.

“And I think when you put all those things collectively together, we understand, and if you’ve been in meetings, as I have for many years, you’ve seen the BBC change in recent years, I think, in common with many other news organisations and many other publicly funded organisations, but you’ve seen that much more, for want of a better word, woke tendency among younger members of staff, and the tension between young and old.

“And of course that’s what’s burst out here.”

Asked about his own experience with this, he said: “You have discussions about gender issues. Someone suggests getting JK Rowling on.

“Well, to be honest with you, you’re pretty lucky if you get her on your programme.

“But someone then immediately, one of the producers immediately said, ‘Oh, I don’t think we should she’s very problematic.’ And then someone said, ‘Well, how is she problematic?’ You know, that sort of discussion came up.

“You could often see it’s the way that stories are framed and the way that questions are asked that the onus is always on a certain side of the argument to justify their position.”

The BBC has been approached for comment.