Director general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Tim Davie, and Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, have both stepped down from their positions.
Their resignations come after the organisation faced intense criticism for altering a documentary featuring US President Donald Trump.
Last Monday, The Telegraph released an exclusive report revealing that the edited footage made it seem as though Trump encouraged the 2021 Capitol Hill riot.
The publication referenced a leaked internal whistleblower memo written by Michael Prescott, a former independent adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee.
In the BBC Panorama programme titled ‘Trump: A Second Chance?’, Trump said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
However, the memo explained that the clip was edited and taken from two different parts of his original January 2021 speech in Washington DC, separated by more than 50 minutes. In the initial version, Trump said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
The “fight like hell” line came from a segment where Trump was speaking about how “corrupt” US elections were.
According to The Telegraph, the leaked memo criticised Panorama’s “distortion of the day’s events”, warning that it could make viewers question, “Why should the BBC be trusted, and where will this all end?”
The memo further stated that senior managers “refused to accept there had been a breach of standards” when the concerns were raised.
Davie, who became BBC director general in September 2020, admitted that “there have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility”.
Turness, who joined the BBC in 2022, also acknowledged errors but insisted that “recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong”.
The broadcaster has recently faced additional scrutiny for alleged “anti-Israel bias” in its Arabic service’s reporting on the Gaza war.
The memo also mentioned Prescott’s concerns over the BBC’s reporting on trans issues.
Trump described the edit as a “terrible thing” for democracy.