It is far from a single news item though, or a "mistake".. Micheal Prescott's memo to the board members outlines many shocking examples of manipulative reporting, one after another. And this single news item was not an example of BBC being "at fault" so much as intentionally altering and fabricating the news. I will post his introduction and description of the Trump issue here and add another if I have time. It is long but it is worth reading:
Dear Board Members,
You may know that I have been one of the two independent external advisers working alongside the EGSC. I held this role for three years and stood down in the summer.
I departed with profound and unresolved concerns about the BBC. Since leaving, I have thought long and hard about what, if anything, to do about this.
My conclusion is that these concerns are serious enough for me to draw them to your attention, in your oversight role of the BBC.
What follows is a summary of what were, in my view, some of the most troubling matters to come before the EGSC during my term.
My view is that the Executive repeatedly failed to implement measures to resolve highlighted problems, and in many cases simply refused to acknowledge there was an issue at all. Indeed, I would argue that the Executive’s attitude when confronted with evidence of serious and systemic problems is now a systemic problem in itself - meaning the last recourse for action is the Board.
Much of what I set out below is taken from reports prepared for the EGSC by David Grossman, the Senior Editorial Adviser to the Committee.
My understanding is that, as Board members, you have access to EGSC papers should you wish to read his excellent (and so often damning) analyses.
One of the defences often deployed by the BBC when criticised by external organisations is to claim the evidence presented is mere ‘cherry picking’. This is why David’s reports were so very important: they came from within the BBC and were produced by a very experienced and talented BBC journalist. Yet his findings were still, on the whole, dismissed or ignored, even after EGSC members tried to press home the case for full-blooded action.
I served as the Political Editor of the Sunday Times for 10 years, and in corporate advisory roles since then, including as Corporate Affairs Director of BT.
I think it is important to state that I have never been a member of any political party and do not hold any hard and fast views on matters such as American politics or disputes in the Middle East. My views on the BBC’s treatment of the subjects covered below do not come with any political agenda.
Rather, what motivated me to prepare this note is despair at inaction by the BBC Executive when issues come to light. On no other occasion in my professional life have I witnessed what I did at the BBC with regard to how management dealt with (or failed to deal with) serious recurrent problems.
Long though the following note is, I do urge you to read it. My hope is that you may be able to ensure action where the EGSC has not.
The US election
Panorama
One week before polling day, the BBC aired an hour-long Panorama special called: Trump: A Second Chance?
I watched the programme and found it to be neither balanced nor impartial – it seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance. Critics of the Republican presidential candidate vastly outnumbered those who argued for him. What examination there was of reasons for Trump’s popularity seemed to me insufficient given the overall balance of the programme.
Given what I took to be the anti-Trump nature of the programme, I of course assumed there would be a similar, balancing Panorama programme about Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris the following week. I remain shocked that there was not. I raised my concerns at the EGSC and David Grossman was asked to review the programme.
He concluded the main contributors to the documentary were heavily weighted against Trump, with just one supporter against ten who questioned his fitness for office. Worse still, David highlighted alarming concerns about how Panorama had edited Trump’s speech to his supporters on January 6*, 2021, the day of the Capitol Hill riot. Examining the charge that Trump had incited protesters to storm Capitol Hill, it turned out that Panorama had spliced together two clips from separate parts of his speech. This created the impression that Trump said something he did not and, in doing so, materially misled viewers.
The spliced together version of Trump’s comments aired by Panorama made it seem that he said: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.” In reality, the first part of Trump’s speech: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you,” came 15 minutes into the speech. The second half of the sentence that was aired by Panorama, “and we fight. We fight like hell....” came 54 minutes later.
Fifteen minutes into the speech, what Trump actually said: “We are gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” It was completely misleading to edit the clip in the way Panorama aired it. The fact that he did not explicitly exhort supporters to go down and fight at Capitol Hill was one of the reasons there were no federal charges for incitement to riot.
That was not the end of Panorama’s distortion of the day’s events.
On January 6, 2021, the so-called Proud Boys, Trump’s supporters, marched to Capitol Hill before Trump had started speaking. David’s report to the EGSC highlighted that Trump’s ‘speech’ clip was followed by video footage of the Proud Boys marching towards Congress. This created the impression Trump’s supporters had taken up his ‘call-to-arms’
.
This was one of the most shocking sets of issues uncovered during my time with the EGSC. If BBC journalists are to be allowed to edit video in order to make people “say” things they never actually said, then what value are the Corporation’s guidelines, why should the BBC be trusted, and where will this all end?
And yet, faced with David’s findings, the Executive refused to accept there had been a breach of standards and doubled down on its defence of Panorama.
At the EGSC meeting on May 12th , 2025 Jonathan Munro asserted: “There was no attempt to mislead the audience about the content or nature of Mr Trump’s speech before the riot at the Capitol. It’s normal practice to edit speeches into short form clips.”
This completely goes against my understanding of BBC editorial policy regarding misleading edits. You will remember, it was this kind of editing that led to the resignation of BBC1 controller, Peter Fincham, following what has become known as Crowngate.
Deborah Turness tried to justify the doctored video and mangled timeline of the day by citing the US Congressional Committee on Trump’s role in the January 6th riots – the one which concluded he was involved in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the legal results of the 2020 election. Yet this was a Democrat-packed Committee, not an objective source of truth. I can see no justification for editing video clips so that a presidential candidate appears to say something he never did – and this defence did nothing to change my mind. I do urge the Board to pay particular attention to this matter.
During the EGSC meeting, neither the Director General nor the Chairman made any comment about Jonathan’s dismissive attitude to David’s findings or Deborah’s defence of the edited video clips. My concerns prompted me to email the Chairman the day after the EGSC meeting.
With regard to the Executive’s comfort in having video clips edited to misrepresent the speaker, I warned: “This is a very, very dangerous precedent. I hope you agree and take some form of action to ensure this potentially huge problem is nipped in the bud.”
I received no reply.