BBC chief resigns after criticism of Trump documentary
The Director General of the BBC, Tim Davie, and its CEO of News, Deborah Turness, have resigned following allegations of manipulative coverage of a speech by Donald Trump. The broadcaster is said to have edited statements made by the US president shortly before the storming of the Capitol in January 2021 for a documentary in such a way that it could give a false impression.
A political campaign against the media
The real goal here is to weaken the BBC as an independent institution, The Guardian suspects:
“The row obscures the context that explains what is, at the heart of the matter, a political campaign against the BBC that could act as a textbook example of how to confuse and undermine the kind of journalism that is, at the very least, aiming for impartiality in a sea of spin and distortion. ... Each criticism of BBC coverage comes from the anti-progressive culture-war playbook. ... Trump's threat of a lawsuit against the BBC follows his successful cowing of the US media, with a succession of commercial broadcasters agreeing to pay damages on the flimsiest of charges. The BBC must be independent of government and political interference.”
One-sided reporting undermines trust
The Times sees the criticism of the BBC as justified and calls for more impartiality:
“If the publicly funded BBC proves as easily captured by partisan ideology as the next institution, the argument for it disintegrates. … The BBC's output bias on a contested subject like sex and gender is not just the product of 'mistakes', but of cultural and institutional capture. The BBC needs new leadership that toughens up its impartiality guidelines and makes clear that there is no place at the corporation for staff who try to undermine them, and therefore public trust in the whole BBC.”