{"id":272802,"date":"2025-11-09T21:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T21:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/272802\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T21:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T21:02:09","slug":"bbc-director-general-top-news-exec-resign-after-criticism-over-bias-including-trump-edit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/272802\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC director general, top news exec resign after criticism over bias, including Trump edit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Tim Davie in 2022. The top BBC executive resigned Sunday.Hannah McKay\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The BBC has been thrown into turmoil after its Director General and the head of its news division resigned Sunday night over allegations of bias in the British broadcaster\u2019s coverage of U.S. President Donald Trump, the war in Gaza as well as race and gender issues.<\/p>\n

Tim Davie announced Sunday night that he was resigning as Director General after five years in the post.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been reflecting on the very intense personal and professional demands of managing this role over many years in these febrile times,\u201d he said in a statement. <\/p>\n

Deborah Turness, head of BBC News, told staff Sunday night that she had \u201ctaken the difficult decision that it will no longer be my role to lead you in the collective vision that we all have: to pursue the truth with no agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BBC had been under growing pressure for days after a leaked memo by Michael Prescott, a former advisor to the BBC\u2019s standards committee, raised a number of issues about the corporation\u2019s news coverage. <\/p>\n

Among his most serious concerns was a documentary produced by the BBC\u2019s flagship Panorama program about Mr. Trump that was shown just before last year\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n

The memo alleged that a speech Mr. Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021, had been edited to show that he incited a crowd on Capital Hill to violence. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to walk down to the Capitol and I\u2019ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell,\u201d said a clip aired in the program.<\/p>\n

Mr. Prescott pointed out that \u201cIn reality, the first part of Trump\u2019s speech: \u201c\u2018We\u2019re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I\u2019ll be with you,\u2019\u201d came 15 minutes into the speech. The second half of the sentence that was aired by Panorama, \u2018and we fight. We fight like hell….\u2019 came 54 minutes later.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added that the program also did not include Mr. Trump saying: \u201cI know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Prescott\u2019s memo, which ran 19 pages, also raised a number of concerns about other coverage and concluded: \u201cThere are clearly worrying systemic issues with the BBC\u2019s coverage in the areas set out above. From what I witnessed, I fear the problems could be even more widespread than this summary might suggest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s press secretary Karoline Leavitt, described the BBC as \u201c100% fake news\u201d and a \u201cpropaganda machine\u201d after the memo was first published in the Daily Telegraph last week. <\/p>\n

British taxpayers were being \u201cforced to foot the bill for a Leftist propaganda machine,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s chair, Samir Shah, is also expected to issue an apology to a parliamentary committee on Monday for the Panorama program. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Tim Davie in 2022. The top BBC executive resigned Sunday.Hannah McKay\/The Associated Press…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-272802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}