{"id":285334,"date":"2025-11-15T19:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T19:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/285334\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T19:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T19:58:15","slug":"trump-says-he-plans-to-sue-the-bbc-for-up-to-us5-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/285334\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he plans to sue the BBC for up to US$5-billion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

U.S. President says he plans to sue the BBC over allegations the broadcaster\u2019s flagship news program, Panorama, showed biased coverage.Jack Taylor\/Reuters<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> plans to move ahead with a lawsuit against the BBC and seek up to US$5-billion in damages, but legal experts doubt the President will have much success in court.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump told reporters late Friday that he planned to sue the BBC for \u201canywhere between US$1-billion and US$5-billion\u201d over allegations the broadcaster\u2019s flagship news program, Panorama, showed biased coverage. A Panorama documentary that aired last year edited two sections of a speech Mr. Trump gave to supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, and ran them together in a way that left the impression he urged the crowd to violence on Capitol Hill. <\/p>\n

The BBC has apologized for the edit<\/a> and two senior executives \u2013 the director general and the CEO of news \u2013 resigned last week<\/a>. However, the broadcaster has said that it would not pay Mr. Trump any damages if he followed through on a threat to sue.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump insisted on Friday that he will pursue a lawsuit against the BBC in Florida. \u201cI think I have to do it,\u201d he told reporters onboard Air Force One. \u201cThey cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.\u201d He added that \u201cthe people of the U.K. are very angry about what happened as you can imagine because it shows the BBC is fake news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s lawsuit faces a number of hurdles, said Mark Stephens, a media lawyer in London. <\/p>\n

His lawyers can\u2019t file the suit in Britain because the statute of limitations on libel actions in the U.K. is one year. The deadline elapsed in this case because the Panorama documentary was broadcast in October, 2024. That leaves Mr. Trump with the only option of suing in the U.S. <\/p>\n

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

U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters onboard Air Force One en route to Florida, on Friday.Annabelle Gordon\/Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with America is that the offending program was never shown there, not on BBC World or on BBC iPlayer,\u201d Mr. Stephens said. \u201cIt logically follows that nobody can think the less of President Trump as a result of the Panorama program, because nobody saw it in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if he could get the case heard in the U.S., public figures face a high bar for defamation cases and Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers would have to prove that BBC editors acted maliciously. \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone thinks we\u2019re at that level of action. Nobody thinks it was deliberate,\u201d Mr. Stephens said. \u201cAnd so, in those circumstances, I don\u2019t think as a public figure he even surmounts the hurdle to be able to mount a suit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Stephens also pointed out that Mr. Trump faces several lawsuits in the U.S. over the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to see how, against that backdrop, that you can lay the wreckage of Jan. 6 at the door of the BBC and a program that wasn\u2019t watched there,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has a long history of suing media outlets in the U.S. over their coverage.<\/p>\n

He sought US$20-billion in damages from CBS last year over edits the 60 Minutes program<\/a> made to a pre-election interview with then Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. CBS parent company Paramount settled the case out of court for US$16-million. ABC News also settled a defamation lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump over comments made by broadcaster George Stephanopoulos<\/a> for US$15-million.<\/p>\n

Opinion: Can CBC\/Radio-Canada avoid a BBC-like scandal of its own?<\/a><\/p>\n

Des Freedman, a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, noted that U.S. media companies are more vulnerable to potential regulatory issues if they don\u2019t settle these kinds of lawsuits filed by Mr. Trump. For example, he said the CBS settlement is believed to have paved the way for a subsequent US$8-billion merger between the network\u2019s owner, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media. By contrast, the BBC does not face the same kind of pressure. <\/p>\n

Prof. Freedman also believes that Mr. Trump\u2019s lawsuit faces potentially insurmountable legal obstacles. But he said the President could take other steps to punish the BBC. He could refuse to give BBC reporters interviews and ban them from press pools that cover the White House.<\/p>\n

The BBC has been trying to gain a foothold in the U.S. by building on its reputation as a trusted news source, Prof. Freedman added. But the allegations of biased coverage won\u2019t help. \u201cSomething like this is disastrous, because you don\u2019t exploit your reputation for being the best bulwark against disinformation by doing an edit that you then apologize for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The BBC has been reeling for days over the findings in a leaked internal memo that suggested there was widespread bias in the news coverage of Mr. Trump, the war in Gaza, racism, and gender identity issues.<\/p>\n

BBC Chair Samir Shah has said the corporation accepted many of the conclusions contained in the memo, which was written last summer by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC\u2019s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to make clear that we have taken Mr. Prescott\u2019s concerns seriously, and considered the points he made carefully,\u201d Mr. Shah said last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: U.S. President says he plans to sue the BBC over allegations the broadcaster\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285335,"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-285334","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\/285334","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=285334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}