LONDON — The head of the BBC and the British broadcaster’s top news executive both resigned Sunday after criticism of the way the organization edited a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
The BBC said Director-General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness had both decided to leave the corporation.<\/p>\n
Britain’s public broadcaster has been criticized for editing a speech Trump made on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the Capitol in Washington.<\/p>\n
Critics said that the way the speech was edited for a BBC documentary last year was misleading and cut out a section where Trump said that he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.<\/p>\n
In a letter to staff, Davie said quitting the job after five years “is entirely my decision.”<\/p>\n
“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” Davie said.<\/p>\n
He said that he was “working through exact timings with the Board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months.”<\/p>\n
Turness said that the controversy about the Trump documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC – an institution that I love. As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.”<\/p>\n
“In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down,” she said in a note to staff. “While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.”<\/p>\n
Pressure on the broadcaster’s top executives has been growing since the Daily Telegraph newspaper published parts of a dossier complied by Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines.<\/p>\n
As well as the Trump edit, it criticized the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service.<\/p>\n
The BBC faces greater scrutiny than other broadcasters – and criticism from its commercial rivals – because of its status as a national institution funded through an annual license fee of 174.50 pounds ($230) paid by all households with a television.<\/p>\n
It also is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial in its output, and critics are quick to point out when they think it has failed.<\/p>\n
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