Photo: Kin Cheung/AP via CNN Newsource
By Catherine Nicholls, Christian Edwards and Billy Stockwell, CNN
The BBC has apologised to US President Donald Trump over a documentary that Trump's lawyers described as false and defamatory, seeking to defuse a row that has plunged the public broadcaster into its worst crisis in years.
A BBC spokesperson said that lawyers for the broadcaster had written to Trump's legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday, according to BBC News.
"BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President (Donald) Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president's speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the program," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the BBC has no plans to rebroadcast the documentary on any BBC platforms while rejecting that it was defamatory.
Rejecting Trump's demands for compensation the broadcaster said, "While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim", according to BBC News.
Trump had threatened to sue the BBC for $USD1 billion (NZD$1.7b) unless it retracted the October 2024 documentary and apologised for what his lawyers have described as "overwhelming financial and reputational harm" before a deadline of 5pm ET Friday (Saturday NZT).
The BBC had already apologised for an error of judgement in the documentary, titled Trump: A Second Chance?, but not before it had ignited a scandal that saw the resignations of its director-general and head of news.
In the documentary, Trump's 6 January speech was edited to show him saying: "We're gonna walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore."
In fact, the US leader said: "We're gonna walk down to the Capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women," with "fight like hell" coming 54 minutes later.
In an interview with Fox News Tuesday, Trump said the British broadcaster had "butchered" his "beautiful" and "calming" speech and "made it sound radical".
Trump has a history of sending legal threats and not following through with lawsuits. But he has sued The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in recent months over other grievances.
The BBC's board has been criticised for responding too slowly to the editing screw-up, which was revealed in a leaked internal memo that has created a firestorm of criticism and allegations of systemic bias.
Deborah Turness, the outgoing CEO of BBC News who resigned on Sunday, has said that while mistakes were made, "allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong".
In a message to BBC News staff following her resignation, Turness said that the backlash surrounding the Trump documentary had "reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC - an institution that I love".
- CNN
