The US President sued the BBC for defamation, which, in his opinion, was manifested in the editing of phrases from his speech on January 6, 2021, in the Panorama documentary. Trump is demanding five billion dollars from the British Broadcasting Corporation, reports BBC.
Photo: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
BBC management has not yet officially commented on the lawsuit.
In November, the BBC apologized to Trump for editing his statements but rejected the demand for compensation, stating that it saw no grounds for defamation accusations. Trump announced his intention to sue the BBC at the same time, in early November.
“I think I should do it. They tricked me. They changed the words I said,” Trump told reporters. After that, he sent the corporation a letter threatening a lawsuit.
The scandal surrounding the editing of Trump's words erupted after the British newspaper Telegraph published an internal memo by Michael Prescott, former independent advisor to the BBC Editorial Standards Committee.
In it, Prescott drew the attention of BBC management to the fact that in one of the corporation's flagship programs, Panorama, Donald Trump's speech was edited in such a way that the meaning of his words was distorted.
In his speech in Washington on January 6, 2021, Trump said: “We are going to walk to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen.” More than 50 minutes after that (in the same speech), he declared: “And we will fight. Fight with all our might.”
But in the program Panorama: Trump: A Second Chance?, which aired last year, his words were presented as: “We are going to walk to the Capitol… and I will go with you. And we will fight. We will fight with all our might.”
The statement about the intention to “fight with all our might” was made when Trump was talking about how “rigged” the results of the US presidential election were. In total, the words “fight” or “fighting” were heard 20 times in his speech.
The BBC admitted that such editing created a false impression that Trump was directly inciting violent actions.
On November 9, the corporation's Director-General Tim Davie and Director of BBC News Deborah Turness resigned.
Before Trump filed the lawsuit, BBC lawyers had thoroughly responded to his claims. They stated, in particular, that there was no malicious intent in such editing and that the film did not harm Trump, as he won the presidential election shortly after the film aired.
Additionally, the lawyers noted that the BBC did not have the rights to broadcast this program on its American channels and, accordingly, did not show it in the USA. The film was hosted on the BBC's own service — iPlayer, but it is only accessible from within the United Kingdom.
Trump's lawyers in the lawsuit mention an agreement between the BBC and another media corporation, according to which, based on their information, it had the rights to distribute the film outside of Britain. Neither the BBC nor this corporation has yet responded to this claim.
Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that Florida residents could watch the film using a VPN or on the British streaming service BritBox.
Comments
В случае с Трампом они не на того напали, на того, кто может себя защитить и призвать к ответу, а миллионы фактов искажения информации в отношении других лиц остаютсся безнаказанными.
Я как.то был на презентации немецкого филиала BBC для журналистов. Что меня тогда удивило: они не скрывали, что у них задача- не какое.то беспристрастное вещание, а пропаганда британских интересов. А ради пропаганды естественно, можно искажать, замалчивать невыгодное. Главное чтоб на прямом вранье не поймали