Donald Trump BBC

[Daygloboo]

If Donald Trump gets compensation from the BBC to the tune of a million, which might affect our license fee payments, would it be appropriate to stop buying goods from US for a while. I think the BBC were wrong to misrepresent what Trump said, but effectively suing the population as a retaliation seems a step too far.

I laugh at people insisting there is an inherent left wing bias, when the person who oversees the impartiality within the BBC is Robbie Gibb, a career conservative who has worked extensively for Conservative ministers, led a consortium who owns the Jewish Chronicle (which apologised for publishing a load of false stories about Gaza), and was an editorial advisor for GB news. Those who worked with him at the BBC when he was in an editorial role in news and politics have been very frank about how he was only interested in running stories that suited his own political leanings (he supported Brexit and calls himself a Thatcherite).

Complaints have been made to him about right wing bias in the organisation but he refuses to deal with them, according to sources inside the BBC. It entirely suits his narrative to raise the profile of this particular error, which was likely down to an editor not making the timelapse obvious. It is laughable to suggest that a documentary shown 3 years after Trump made that speech, after there was an impeachment trial where witnesses confirmed they had acted on his encouragement when storming the Capitol, affected anyone’s opinion of him and misrepresented what actually happened on the night.

Regardless of your views of the BBC, the President of the United States bullying a news organisation is not something anyone should support. He has done the same with CNN, ABC, CBS, Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Trying to influence the media in this way threatens democracy.

It is also worth noting the other news organisations who are leading this charge against the BBC, have much skin in the game. BBC is a huge competitor of theirs and they would love to see it brought down. It is widely regarded as the best broadcasting service in the world, by people who know way more about these things than I do. There are problems in the organisation, as there are in any global corporation, but letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and calling for the end of the BBC would be a pretty bad thing.

The documentary show is regularly under contract to the BBC and the director of it is a BBC employee. The editing of the clips was not an error or mistake, it was done absolutely deliberately. By people who knew what they were doing.

This came to light months and months ago at the BBC and they made it clear they didn't care. That wasn't a mistake or error either, it was a deliberate choice.

Trump may or may not get anywhere with his suit, but I hope it scares the absolute shit out of the kind of people who work for the BBC, and creates some self-reflection. This is the kind of thing that if an individual had been caught at it, their career would be over. So far I have seen no evidence of any self-awareness however.

That's about the size of it. They omitted the line he used that he could use to say "see, I told them to be peaceful" despite the rest of the hour long speech being full of inflammatory vitriol. The people involved in the insurrection certainly felt inspired to riot by the speech, they testified in court.

Stupid of the BBC to give him any ammunition though.

If the NHS or police do illegal things they can, and should, face the legal consequences for that.

The BBC has a purpose, like the heath services and the police. But if it's reputation becomes so bad that the majority of tax players no longer want to support it, that's a pretty fucking terrible indictment, and an indication that it is no longer fulfilling it's purpose.

What is frustrating is that there is really no reason that it should be impossible to have a really good, strong broadcasting service. There are so many moments over the last 10 years where they shouuld have taken a step back and taken a moment to reflect. Changing course should have been simple, nothing at all like the NHS which has all kinds of constraints that are very challenging to deal with.

All that the BBC had to do was pay attention to the completely normal and well known journalistic standards that every journalist should learn.

Personally I think the only way forward would be to fire the vast majority of their writers and managers, and rehire from very different groups of people.

“Lefty top management”

Tim Davie - ran twice to become a Conservative Councillor, Deputy chairman a Conservative Association, banned reporters from going on pride marches etc.

Robbie Gibb - as I noted in a previous post, strong links with Conservatives.

You want to call these guys “lefty?”

He hasn't got a slam dunk case at all. To successfully sue someone for defamation you've got to prove that you were materially damaged by it. Clearly it didn't stop him being reelected, and he's not lost any money. He'd also have to prove intent.

He doesn't have a slam dunk case - not even close to one. For a defamation suit to succeed he has to show a material loss. Given that he was re-elected President after the Panorama programme in question was shown, he's going to struggle to prove that. Additionally, he has the tiny problem that the programme was never available in America. "Slam dunk case", my a**e.

Did you see the programme? It followed ardent Trump supporters, it contained (almost exclusively) viewpoints from those who were going to vote for him. It explored why people loved him and what they thought another Trump term would do for the country. It makes absolutely no editorial sense that this edit was a deliberate attempt to paint him in a certain light when the entire show was people singing his praises. It made no difference at all to the tone of the programme.

But if you have some direct line into the minds of the editorial staff, please do please share this previously unreported information.

I still want to know who actually made the edit. Shouldn't they have some culpability in all this?

Neither Obama nor Biden stirred up an insurrection so if footage had been edited to show that they had, that would be wrong.

Trump did stir up an insurrection. Those who were there on the day clearly paid more attention to the "fight" bit than the "peacefully" bit. He also refused to call out the National Guard while his cult were trying to lynch Mike Pence.The House of Representatives impeached him over it and the Department of Justice indicted him (he managed to get the legal process dragged out long enough to get elected as president again and scrap the prosecution). He ended up pardoning the rioters - if it wasn't already obvious that he wanted the insurrection to succeed. This edit (sloppy as it was) didn't change the overall message in thr speech, and the effect it had.

Yup. "Leftie" today just means anyone who Trump or his fans disagree with.

The other day Trump said Marjorie Taylor Greene was "far left".

Post truth era.

And what I find odd is that many of what Trump does can actually be described as Maoist.

Congress voted on the matter and a majority agreed that he incited an insurrection.

His devoted followers there in Washington that day clearly decided that he wanted them to fight for him, because they did, and testified in court later. He resisted calling out the National Guard and later pardoned the thugs. One of his tweets that morning said: "Get smart Republicans. FIGHT". His speech used the word "fight" twenty times, and "peacefully" just once.

Basically all of the evidence shows that he incited an insurrection. One line in an hour long speech doesn't change that.

It's not as clear cut as saying it was a documentary made by another company.

From the Times:

Trump: A Second Chance? was produced by an in-house BBC team with October Films, an Emmy and Bafta award-winning producer with credits including Labour in Power: Inside the New Government, BBC2’s Laura Kuenssberg: State of Chaos, and ­Channel 4’s Levison Wood: Walking With…

The collaboration came about after the BBC and October Films discovered that they were simultaneously developing documentaries about Trump’s most ardent supporters and joined forces. Under the terms of the agreement the BBC appointed an experienced ­in-house producer-director, whose credits include Panorama, Are You Scared Yet, Human? and Trump and the Tech Titans to work on it alongside a BBC visual editor.

The pair created the film, making the decision to splice together the two sections of the speech in good faith. According to Shah their aim was to help “convey [the speech’s] ­message so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time”.

But they opted against informing the programme’s executive producers at the BBC and October Films, as well as the Panorama editor, Karen Wightman, of their decision.

https://archive.ph/i8u8U

I'm not quite sure how they can have made the decision to splice the footage 'in good faith', but anyway ...

Donald Trump needs to sue as the BBC have done unethical news before
we as a public need to trust the news we need to have faith that it’s represented with honesty and integrity with out ideally bias
we can’t do that now so Donald Trump must sue and the to be honest the BBC needs disbanding as it’s not longer trust worthy think Jimmy Saville cover ups and a host of other wrongdoings the BBC should be decided up any payments should come off the backs of the corporation profits and those involved in the scandal not the licence payers

A little less than a billion was awarded in damages, but a later ruling that he had to pay fees took it 1.4!

Unfortunately nobody has seen a penny of it yet, and it doesn't look like they will any time soon.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what congress thought, or the courts, or you or me.

It doesn't matter what the BBC thinks he meant.

It doesn't matter what subsequently happened.

Journalists can't ethically stitch together two sentences to make it seem like it is one sentence. Especially when they are saying two differernt things.

It's not even like they just picked the particular bit of the speech that would seem most damning. They created something totally new, which was never said.

It's completely outside what is acceptable for any journalist or news media.

It's not like anyone at the BBC will have to pay anything. If Trump wins, any compensation will be paid by licence fee payers, as usual.

Maybe have a listen to the Inciteful Sisters podcast to see what also went on in the newsroom…

Yep this.

I thought he was acquitted anyway, was it the impeachment part.

Maybe once but no longer.

Congress is partisan though.

Trump said this at the very end of his quite long speech. It links the beginning to the end by mentioning “fight” several times and how he will be with the people as they move to the Capitol. If this is the part the BBC was referring to in Panorama, only a few words were omitted, if any, and certainly not the underlying sentiment.

”And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
Our exciting adventures and boldest endeavors have not yet begun. My fellow Americans, for our movement, for our children, and for our beloved country.
And I say this despite all that's happened. The best is yet to come.
So we're going to, we're going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. I love Pennsylvania Avenue. And we're going to the Capitol, and we're going to try and give.
The Democrats are hopeless — they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.
So let's walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
I want to thank you all. God bless you and God Bless America.
Thank you all for being here. This is incredible. Thank you very much. Thank you.“

I totally agree.

I am also fascinated to know where all these people wanting impartial news will get this if the BBC didn’t exist. The accusation of bias is interesting in the context of an ‘independent’ report actively looking for left-wing bias, commissioned by right-wing leaning board members who want phrases like ‘reproductive rights’ banned from US news reports. There should not be political appointees on the board, but we have Boris Johnson to thank for that.

Quite. Who does this all really benefit?

But then surely that is on the BBC? If you get taxpayers money, surely you have a responsibility not to do stupid shit which might get you sued?