'We addressed problems long before Prescott memo'- Shah
The Chair also rejected the accusations that the BBC had only admitted to mistakes because of the leak of Prescott’s memo in the Daily Telegraph last week.
He says it’s “simply not true” that the BBC wasn’t being accountable to mistakes and repeated again that Prescott didn’t unearth the issues but were privy to them precisely because of his position on the ethics and standards committee.
“We knew all about those issues long before Mr. Prescott said that,” he says, also referencing the Panorama Trump edit.
“We knew about it, and we’ve taken actions. We’ve taken actions throughout the three years.”
Shah says they’ve taken action such as issuing disciplinary measures and changing leadership structures. His letter to the the parliamentary committee also specified new watchdog roles that were created to prevent further mistakes happening.
“We have done things. It’s entirely arguable we should do more. Fine. That’s fair enough. But it’s not right to say we sit there doing nothing.
“We did not need the Telegraph piece to tell us that these things were wrong and you should take action. We have.”
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Shah rejects accusation BBC has anti-Israel bias in Middle East coverage
When asked to clarify a response on whether the BBC has that bias and failed to address it Shah said:
“I don’t think there’s a systemic bias in [the BBC being] anti-Israel. I mean, there are loads of arguments that suggest almost the opposite.
I think that we have issues, as we have talked about underlying problems, and we’ve made changes in needed to try and deal with that.”
As we reported earlier, in his letter to parliament Shah identifies changes that had been made at BBC Arabic and in some longform journalism divisions – where corrections were issued about some Gaza reporting.
But I think it’s worth talking about the scale of the BBC… and how much excellent, impartial journalism it does. It’s difficult. It is a massive organisation.”
He says the BBC has put out hundreds and hundreds of hours of coverage of Israel and the Middle East and that while there have been mistakes and “we should own up to mistakes when we have them” – those errors need to be put in the context of the news organisation’s three years of coverage of Gaza.
“Let’s have a sense of perspective and proportionality”.
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'We have to move forward with new leadership' - Shah
Shah is also asked how the BBC, which appears to be at its weakest point now, will forge ahead to deal with the critical negotiations of charter renewal. The current one expires at the end of 2027.
“The important thing… is to start putting in place the new leadership as soon as is proper, and do it properly to in order to do it smoothly and make sure that we address the challenges facing us.
“It’s never easy to be the director general or BBC director of news. So I don’t take that lightly. But we need to do it.”
'I did not want to lose Tim Davie' - Shah
Shah again vigorously defends Tim Davie, who led the corporation for five years.
“I did not want to lose Tim Davie,” he says, calling him an “outstanding director general”.
He says no one on the board wanted him to leave and “we were upset by the decision”.
But he added, he understood Davie’s decision “at a very human level”.
“Tim has gone through a lot of attacks. It’s been relentless. It’s also the very, very difficult job to join the BBC, a huge, massive enterprise and also a lot [on] the director in terms of just his physical resilience and also emotional.”
“I have huge admiration for what he’s done, and it’s an admiration shared by the board.”
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BBC board “not overly political” – Shah
We’ll just delve back into that interview now because the BBC Chair made several points during it.
Firstly, when asked if he thought the BBC board was overtly political, he said: “No, I do not” and he also dismissed the idea that there were forces working within the BBC to destroy it as “a fanciful notion of what happens at the board.”
“It really does have a diversity of views, as there are in the public, in the country.”
When questioned if the board had wanted the BBC’s Head of News, Deborah Turness, to leave, he said this was not up to the board.
“Let’s be clear about the role of the board. We are a non-executive with ten of us a non-executive for exactly. The job of the board is to review BBC output and to maintain and to represent the public interest. It is not our job to determine who who should not be the director of news. That is the job of the director general.”
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In the interview broadcast just 20 minutes ago on BBC News, Shah had suggested that the corporation was perhaps bracing for a Trump legal case.
Trump was a “litigious fellow”, so “we should be prepared for all outcomes.”
Trump threatening legal action against the BBC
The BBC has confirmed it has received a letter from the US president threatening a legal case.
Trump has sued several US outlets so far in his second term – some cases of which have been thrown out in the courts already.
We’ll have more details as we get them.
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Shah rejects Prescott's allegation of 'systemic bias' at BBC News
He says that the ethics and standards committee to which Prescott was party to, and on which Shah himself sits, has taken significant action in addressing complaints on both specific stories and underlying problems in coverage.
“All these stories.. and issues that Mr Prescott raises have been considered… indeed that is how he knows about them because he is a member of the committee”.
He says there’s been an impression that “we’ve listened to the concerns and done nothing” and that is not accurate, Shah said.
“We have taken action- it ranges from all sorts of things, from overseeing corrections where we have got it wrong to… more extreme cases,” he adds, pointing out changes in team leadership.
“I don’t think it’s fair to say that this impression that we’re not doing anything is not true.”
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BBC runs interview with chair
The BBC news channel has run an interview between chair Samir Shah and their media editor Katie Razzall in the immediate aftermath of the release of Shah’s letter to parliament.
He has apologised for the Panorama edit of Trump’s speech, adding that he’s received communications from Trump’s team over it.
“We have received communication from President Trump and his people, and we are now considering how to how to reply to him.”
Asked if the US president was suing the BBC, Shah said: I do not know that yet. But he’s a litigious fellow. So we should be prepared for all outcomes.”
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BBC not corrupt or institutionally biased, Downing Street says
Downing Street has said the BBC is not corrupt nor institutionally biased, as the corporation comes under intense pressure for its coverage of a range of issues.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson told reporters:
On the question of is the BBC corrupt?: No. The BBC has a vital role in an age of disinformation … where there’s a clear argument for a robust, impartial British news service to deliver, and that case is stronger than ever.
I think I’ve already addressed some of the comments that have been made over the last 24 hours, but we are of the view that it’s important that the BBC acts swiftly to maintain trust and correct mistakes quickly when they occur.
On the future of the BBC licence fee, the spokesperson reportedly refused to confirm whether or not it was on the table as part of a review of the royal charter (see post at 12.18 for more information about the charter).
Downing Street said it was considering how the BBC can “prosper” with a “sustainable funding model”.
Action taken at BBC Arabic, Shah says
Samir Shah says that the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee had, on top of specific story complaints, also identified “concerns about underlying problems – for example in the Arabic service or long form journalism.”
He says “action has been taken to tackle this kind of problem” at BBC Arabic, which is the BBC World Service’s Arabic language channel. This included:
A restructuring of the BBC Arabic team
A new Arabic-speaking Head of Editorial Quality and Standards appointed in the World Service
A social media research unit set up to verify those who appear on BBC Arabic.
One of the complaints about BBC Arabic was that it had given a platform to antisemitic voices in their coverage of Gaza.
Suggestion that the BBC has tried to bury stories is 'simply not true', chairman says
In his letter, Shah also notes that the coverage of Michael Prescott’s leaked memo suggested that he had “uncovered” a list of stories and issues that the BBC had tried to “bury”.
“That interpretation is simply not true,” Shah said.
He went on to say that the BBC has tried to be transparent and tackle criticism head on by issuing corrections when journalists have been inaccurate, altering guidance to make the BBC’s stance on issues “clearer” and changing leadership when necessary.
Shah said the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC) accepts that there are “occasions when the BBC gets things wrong” or its reporting “requires more context and explanation”. He cites the casualty figures given when reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza and the international court of justice order as examples.
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Shah adds that the Panorama clip of Trump’s speech was discussed by the ethics and standards committee in January and again in May.
The committee also heard a defence from BBC News that “the purpose of editing the clip, was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what has happening on the ground at that time.”
The edit was considered and discussed as part of a wider review into the BBC’s US election coverage, Shah said, rather than handed as part of a specific programme complaint.
“The points raised in the review were relayed to the Panorama team, including the decision making on this edit. With hindsight, it would have been better to take more formal action.”
Edit of Trump speech was an 'error of judgement' , BBC chair admits
The BBC chair, Samir Shah has sent a written statement to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which scrutinises the work of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
In it, Shah accepted that the editing of Donald Trump’s speech for Panorama was an “error of judgment”.
Two sections of the speech that were spliced together were made an hour apart, and the edit did not note that Trump had also said he wanted his supporters to demonstrate peacefully. The BBC was accused of editing it in a way that looked as if Trump had explicitly encouraged the Capitol riots.
Shah wrote:
Since the publication of Mr Prescott’s memo, this issue has led to over 500 complaints. These are now being dealt with in the normal way. It has also prompted further reflection by the BBC.
The conclusion of that deliberation is that we accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement.
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The resignations of outgoing director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness come as the BBC heads into crucial talks with the government over the renewal of its charter, which sets the corporation’s mission, public purposes and funding.
Last November, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said the government would use a review of the BBC’s royal charter to consider alternative ways of funding the corporation.
She has ruled out using general taxation to fund the BBC, saying this would leave it too open to interference from the government of the day, and insisted the public should be involved in decisions on the licence fee.
The government has committed to increasing the licence fee in line with inflation each year until 2027.
The BBC has been increasingly cash-strapped, following years when the licence was frozen, and has made sweeping cuts to the organisation as it desperately searches for savings.
Half a million people cancelled their licence fee in 2023, as younger audiences move towards YouTube and streamers and many people get their news from social media or alternative outlets.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed the BBC “has been institutionally biased for decades” as he appeared at a press conference in central London.
Farage also said he had spoken with his ally Donald Trump on Friday after concerns were raised about the way a speech by the US president was edited for Panorama.
The Reform UK leader said:
I actually spoke to the president on Friday. He just said to me: ‘Is this how you treat your best ally?’ It’s quite a powerful comment So there’s been too much going for too long.
My colleague Andrew Sparrow has some more of Farage’s comments in his UK politics live blog.
Farage said last year half a million people stopped paying the licence fee adding that millions more people could start doing the same if the culture within the coopration remains the same.
He say he would like to see the BBC “slimmed down” and to only do “straight news”, adding that the BBC World Service is “very important”.
Farage said:
When it comes to entertainment, when it comes to sport and many other areas like that, they should compete against everybody else (with) a subscription model. That’s the modern world that we live in.
So the licence fee, as currently is, cannot survive. It is wholly unsustainable.
Reform has managed to capitalise on record unpopularity for the new Labour government and is leading in many opinion polls, meaning Farage could be the UK’s next prime minister.
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Trump's assault on the BBC is a serious threat to our national interest, Lib Dem leader says
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has written to the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform leader Nigel Farage after what he describes as Donald Trump’s “assault on the BBC”.
He wrote in his letter posted to X:
President Tump’s assault on the BBC is a serious threat to our national interest, and I urge you to join me in standing up against it …
It should be extremely concerning to us all to see the President of the United States pressuring the BBC over its leadership and attacking its journalists as “corrupt”, and his press secretary telling everyone to “watch GB News”.
It should not be up to foreign powers to dictate where the British people get their news from. We must stand united to defend our democracy from foreign interference like this – even when it comes from a crucial ally.
Davey defended the BBC as a public broadcaster in the UK and said that as a trusted source of information helps project Britain’s soft power around the globe.
“We have watched with alarm as Trump and his allies have undermined the free press in the United States, and all the damage that has done to American democracy. We cannot let that happen here,” he added.
His comments come after Donald Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, described the BBC as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine” in an interview with the Telegraph, in which she said watching BBC bulletins while on trips to the UK “ruins” her day and said taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a leftist propaganda machine”.
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As my colleague Kevin Rawlinson notes in this story, BBC chair Samir Shah is expected to apologise today to the Commons’ culture, media and sport committee, and to provide further details on the Panorama episode in his response to the Commons culture media and sport committee, which had asked how he would address the concerns.
Mark Urban, a former presenter on Newsnight, the BBC’s flagship daily current affairs show, has said the corporation has changed in recent years, suggesting that this reflects generational tensions within the newsroom.
“The BBC, including Deborah Turness, were not willing to listen to and act sufficiently and energetically upon the recommendations of their own internal system for checking bias,” Urban told Sky News.
“Now we saw that leaked memo with a long list of things. We’ve all focused on the Trump interview, but 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.”
Urban added:
And if you have been in meetings as I have for many years, you have seen the BBC change in recent years.
I think in common with many other news organisations and many other publicly funded organisations, but you have 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 is what’s burst out here.
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Here are some more comments from the outgoing BBC News head Deborah Turness, who answered questions on her way into BBC broadcasting house in central London this morning.
Journalist: Do you think that the journalists are corrupt like President Trump says?
Turness: Of course our journalists aren’t corrupt. Our journalists are hardworking people who strive for impartiality. And I will stand by their journalism.
Journalist: Is there institutional bias at the BBC?
Turness: There is no institutional bias. Mistakes are made, but there’s no institutional bias.
Journalist: But why weren’t the mistakes dealt with on Trump, on antisemitism, on women’s rights?
Turness: I’m sure that story will emerge. But for now, I’m going to go in and see our teams.
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BBC director general was slow to act, culture committee chair says
We have heard from Culture, Media and Sport committee chair Caroline Dinenage, who has suggested that the outgoing BBC director Tim Davie ignored an internal dossier into bias at the BBC (see post at 09.06 for more detail on the dossier).
She said Davie “ignored” concerns raised in Michael Prescott’s report over the way the speech by Donald Trump was edited for Panorama.
Dinenage said she is expecting a letter for BBC Chair Samir Shah later today, but confirmed that it has not yet arrived.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today:
I’m very sad about Tim Davie stepping down. I think he was an effective leader at the BBC.
I think he was a great champion for public service media, but there is no escaping the fact that he was very slow to act on this particular issue. But this isn’t the first time and on this particular issue, Michael Prescott’s report, he just didn’t take it seriously until it was too late.
He should have reacted with concern and examined the claims, but just ignored it.
But you know, I do feel it was entirely avoidable and it’s really regretful given the huge commitment to the BBC and public service that Tim Davie demonstrated.
Dinenage added that she thinks it seems “a little bit odd” that her committee has not yet heard from Shah, who is expected to apologise for the way a speech by Donald Trump to crowds at the Capitol on January 6 2021 was edited for current affairs programme Panorama.
BBC News is not institutionally biased, Deborah Turness says
Deborah Turness, the outgoing CEO of news, said the following as she arrived at the BBC this morning in London:
I would like to say it has been the privilege of my career to serve as the CEO of BBC News and to work with our brilliant team of journalists.
I stepped down over the weekend because the buck stops with me. But I’d like to make one thing very clear, BBC News is not institutionally biased. That’s why it’s the world’s most trusted news provider.
She was quoted as having said that “our journalists aren’t corrupt and I will stand by their journalism”.
Turness made her name as editor of ITV News, before moving to New York in 2013 to run the sprawling NBC News operation.
In 2021, Turness returned to ITN – who make news programmes for ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5 – as chief executive.
She has been the CEO of BBC News since 2022, overseeing BBC News and Current Affairs programming and having responsibility for a team of about 6,000 people.
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What sort of bias has the BBC been accused of?
The Telegraph’s leaked BBC memo suggested a range of issues at the BBC, not just the way Donald Trump’s Capitol speech had been selectively edited for the Panorama programme.
The leaked memo came from Michael Prescott, a former independent standards adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee.
Prescott left his role earlier this year and has not commented on the document, understood to have been leaked by a whistleblower.
The Telegraph said Prescott alleged there were “systemic problems”, which had not been addressed by senior management, claiming there were “stark differences” between the coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza on BBC Arabic and on the main BBC website. One issue Prescott reportedly highlighted is the repeated use of commentators who were antisemitic or pro-Hamas.
As my colleague notes in this story, the 19-page dossier is also reported to have criticised the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues, saying the broadcaster had been “captured by a small group of [staff] promoting the Stonewall view” of gender identity issues and that its LGBT desk would “decline to cover any stories raising difficult questions”.
It is said to have alleged that stories raising complex questions about trans issues were suppressed, with a “constant drip-feed of one-sided stories celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity”.
We mentioned in an earlier post that the Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, said it was right that the BBC director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness had resigned as she accused the corporation of being “full of bias”.
Here is her statement, posted on social media, in full:
It’s right that Tim Davie and Deborah Turness have finally taken responsibility and resigned from the BBC.
But let’s be honest, this has been a catalogue of serious failures that runs far deeper. The Prescott report exposed institutional bias that cannot be swept away with two resignations – strong action must be taken on all the issues it raised.
The culture at the BBC has not yet changed. BBC Arabic must be brought under urgent control. The BBC’s US and Middle East coverage needs a full overhaul. And on basic matters of biology, the corporation can no longer allow its output to be shaped by a cabal of ideological activists.
The new leadership must now deliver genuine reform of the culture of the BBC, top to bottom – because it should not expect the public to keep funding it through a compulsory licence fee unless it can finally demonstrate true impartiality.
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Davie's resignation 'a failure of governance'
The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness was “a coup”, a former newspaper editor has said.
David Yelland, who edited The Sun from 1998 to 2003, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that their departure “was a coup, and worse than that, it was an inside job”.
He said:
There were people inside the BBC, very close to the board … who have systematically undermined Tim Davie and his senior team over a period and this has been going on for a long time. What happened yesterday didn’t just happen in isolation.
“What has happened here is there was a failure of governance,” he said. “I don’t blame the chairman [Samir Shah] as an individual, but the job of the chair of any organisation, a company – including the BBC – is to keep their CEO, their top man or woman, in post or fire them.
“And that has not happened, because Tim Davie was not fired. He walked and so there was, that is the definition of a failure of governance.”
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Government minister Louise Sandher-Jones has rejected suggestions the BBC was institutionally biased.
The veterans minister told Sky News:
When you look at the huge range of domestic issues, local issues, international issues, that it has to cover, I think its output is very trusted.
When I speak to people who’ve got very strongly held views on those, they’re still using the BBC for a lot of their information, it’s forming their views on this.
Asked about Donald Trump’s comments on the BBC, she said:
President Trump will obviously speak for himself. Tim Davie and Deborah Turness have been quite clear that it’s their decision that they’ve stepped down and I note that the board has thanked them for their service and had said that it had supported them.
But they’ve, as they’ve said, taken accountability for what the BBC has put out. I think it is very important that public figures have accountability.
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Trump welcomes Davie's resignation
Donald Trump welcomed the resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness. He wrote on his Truth Social platform last night that the way his speech had been edited by Panorama was an attempt to “step on the scales of a presidential election”, adding: “What a terrible thing for Democracy!”
The edit suggested 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 programme was aired last year, a week before the US election.
Who is Tim Davie?
The media boss, who was responsible for the BBC’s global workforce, has steered the corporation through years of crisis and controversy. Read our profile here:
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Reaction to the resignation of Tim Davie
Lisa Nandy, culture secretary, thanked Davie for his work and said the government would help the BBC secure “its role at the heart of national life for decades to come”. She said: “Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world.”
Kemi Badenoch, Tory leader, claimed the BBC was full of “institutional bias,” and “the new leadership must now deliver genuine reform of the culture of the BBC, top to bottom.”
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said the corporation needs “to turn a new leaf”.
Reform leader Nigel Farage calls it the BBC’s “last chance”, saying the two resignations must be “the start of wholesale change” at the corporation.
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BBC chair expected to apologise for Panorama's Trump edit
Hello and welcome to our coverage of developments at the BBC, where the director general, Tim Davie, and its CEO of news, Deborah Turness, have resigned after accusations of bias and misleading the public in its coverage of issues including Donald Trump, Gaza and trans rights.
In an announcement that caused shock within the corporation, Davie said his departure was “entirely my decision”. Davie said his departure would not be immediate and that he was “working through” timings to ensure an “orderly transition” over the coming months.
The BBC chair, Samir Shah, is expected to apologise on Monday for the way a speech by Donald Trump to crowds at the Capitol on January 6 2021 was edited for current affairs programme Panorama after several days of pressure on the broadcaster prompted the resignation of Davie and Turness.
Turness said controversy around the Panorama edit had “reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC – an institution that I love”.
Stay with us for the latest developments throughout the day.
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