BBC leaders to face lawmakers’ grilling over standards after Trump threat to sue

The BBC’s chairman and other senior leaders will face tough questions on its editorial standards from British lawmakers today after US President Donald Trump threatened to file a billion-dollar lawsuit over a misleading edit of a speech he gave on January 6, 2021.

Lawmakers at a British parliamentary session will focus on questions about editorial standards raised by Michael Prescott, a former journalist and external editorial standards adviser to the BBC.

Prescott was the author of an internal note to BBC bosses that raised concerns about the editing of the Trump speech, as well as other instances of alleged left-leaning “institutional bias” at the BBC including its coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and transgender issues.

In addition to Prescott, the British broadcaster’s chairman Samir Shah and board member Robbie Gibb will be quizzed at a hearing with Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

The publicly-funded corporation was plunged into a major crisis after its director general and head of news both quit earlier this month and Trump said he was poised to sue over misleading editing in a BBC documentary about the January 6 US Capitol riot broadcast days before the 2024 US presidential election.

The editing made it look like Trump was directly encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol as Congress was poised to certify president-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Shah, the BBC chairman, acknowledged that the documentary gave “the impression of a direct call for violent action.”

The BBC said Shah has sent a letter to the White House saying that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit of the speech.

Last week Shumeet Banerji, a BBC board member, also said he was stepping down over “governance issues,” sparking further questions about the corporation’s leadership.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.