BBC chairman Samir Shah apologises for ‘error of judgment’ over Trump speech edit

London: The BBC’s Indian-origin chairman, Samir Shah, on Monday apologised on behalf of Britain’s public broadcaster for an “error of judgment” in the way a speech by US President Donald Trump was edited for a documentary.

Shah’s apology came in a letter addressed to the chair of the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee following days of raging controversy, which led to the resignation of BBC director-general Tim Davie and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness on Sunday night.

The documentary in question involved an episode of BBC’s ‘Panorama’ programme aired last year, which appeared to show Trump make a direct call to his supporters to storm the Capitol in Washington DC on January 6, 2021.

“The BBC would like to apologise for that error of judgement,” said Shah, in his letter addressed to the House of Commons committee.

It was a leaked memo written by former adviser Michael Prescott that the splicing together of separate parts of Trump’s speech was first criticised. The BBC confirmed that it has received a letter from Trump threatening legal action against the broadcaster over the issue. On his Truth Social platform, the US president had reacted to the resignation of Davie and Turness by dubbing them “very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a presidential election”. “Since the publication of 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,” Shah’s letter states.