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Culture secretary Lisa Nandy has said she retains confidence in the BBC’s leadership, as the corporation prepares to apologise over the way it edited a Donald Trump speech.
Samir Shah, the corporation’s chair, is poised to apologise tomorrow for the edit, which appeared in an edition of Panorama. The issue was one of a series of criticisms of the BBC made in a letter to its board by a former external adviser.
The Commons culture, media and sport select committee has asked the BBC for its response to the issue, as well as other accusations made in the letter by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to its editorial guidelines and standards committee (EGSC). He left that role in the summer.
Nandy said she retained confidence in the handling of the issue by Shah and Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, who has yet to speak about the issue.
“I have complete confidence that both Samir Shah, the chair of the BBC, and Tim Davie are treating this with the seriousness that this demands,” she said. “I do want to see that response to the select committee, and I will, of course, consider it and have further conversations with them about the action that they’re taking.
“There are a series of very serious allegations made, the most serious of which is that there is systemic bias in the way that difficult issues are reported at the BBC. I’ve spoken to the chair this week, I am confident that he is treating this with the seriousness that that demands.”
She also warned that the BBC was now operating in a world in which viewers were increasingly struggling to distinguish facts from political opinion.
“Increasingly, they’re operating in a news media environment where news and fact is often blurred with polemic and opinion, and I think that is creating a very, very dangerous environment in this country where people can’t trust what they see,” she told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
The edition of Panorama, broadcast a week before the US election, spliced together clips of a Trump speech made on 6 January 2021. The edit suggested that Trump told the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”
The words were taken from sections of his speech almost an hour apart. The incident has led to criticism of the BBC by Donald Trump’s press secretary, who described the corporation this weekend as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine”.
Prescott’s letter was passed to the Daily Telegraph, which revealed its contents over the course of last week. It also included accusations of bias in the way the BBC reported on Gaza and issues relating to trans rights. It criticised BBC Arabic, stating it had featured contributors who had expressed antisemitic views.
Shah is expected to apologise for the Trump edit. Other figures in the BBC accept that it has made errors.
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However, there is also concern within the BBC that the Prescott criticisms are being used by its political opponents to destabilise it and shift its reporting to the right at a crucial time, as it enters delicate negotiations with the government over its future.
Some point to an effort to shift the BBC politically, dating back to Boris Johnson’s time in government. The Guardian has been told the person pushing for Prescott to be handed an advisory role was BBC board member Robbie Gibb, Theresa May’s former communication’s chief who helped set up the rightwing broadcaster GB News.
Gibb was first placed on the BBC board during Johnson’s time in government. Gibb and Prescott have previously been reported as being friends. Gibb was on a four-person interview panel who appointed Prescott.
Johnson has told the Guardian that any suggestion of an attempt to undermine the BBC was “complete and utter bollocks”. Prescott said in his letter that his criticisms “do not come with any political agenda”.
A BBC spokesperson said: “[The editorial adviser roles] were advertised externally as part of the BBC’s open and fair competition process, and Michael Prescott was interviewed by a panel of board members who made the collective decision to appoint him.”
