Trump Threatens To Sue BBC For One Billion Dollars

Summary

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Newscast: Trump Threatens To Sue BBC For One Billion Dollars

Date: November 10, 2025
Host(s): Adam Fleming, Chris Mason, Katie Razzell, with Catriona Perry (Washington correspondent)
Special Interview: Samir Shah (BBC Chair)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Newscast delves into a seismic set of developments at the BBC amid Donald Trump’s threat to sue the organization for $1 billion over an edited clip in a Panorama episode about January 6th, 2021. The discussion covers the fallout from the resignation of two senior BBC executives, the political context, the BBC’s handling of editorial controversy, and the global implications of Trump’s legal gambit. The presenters provide context from both UK and US perspectives, with insights from BBC insiders and new commentary from the BBC’s chair.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Panorama Edit and Trump’s Lawsuit Threat

• The Core of the Crisis: Donald Trump’s lawyers claim the BBC’s Panorama edited speech segments to misleadingly imply he said something he did not, specifically regarding the January 6th Capitol riots. Trump’s team has demanded retraction by Friday, or legal action seeking at least $1 billion will proceed.
• Global Reach: “These fabricated statements that were aired by the BBC have been widely decimated throughout various digital mediums, have reached tens of millions worldwide. Consequently, the BBC has caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm.” (Catriona Perry quoting Trump’s solicitor, 08:16)
• Scale and Precedent: While $1 billion is enormous, it’s less than Trump’s suits against US media outlets (e.g., $20 billion against CBS, $10 billion against Wall Street Journal). Recent payouts include $15 million (ABC) and $16 million (CBS).

2. BBC Leadership Resignations

• Who Stepped Down: Director General Tim Davy and Head of News Deborah Turness resigned almost simultaneously, sparking questions about BBC governance and crisis management.
• Context:
  • Fleming explains that the BBC’s internal criticism over editorial standards had been seen as manageable, but the legal threat and combined issues gave the story an “existential tinge” (Adam Fleming, 03:52).
  • Turness wanted to apologize for the edit but was reportedly prevented by the board, leading to her fury and potential breakdown in trust (Katie Razzell, 11:37).

3. BBC’s Internal Politics and the Board’s Role

• Board Dynamics: The resignation drama was interpreted by some as the result of “a relentless critique of BBC journalism... by members of the board and advisors... on the right, pro Brexit, pro Israel.” (Katie Razzell, 18:13)
• Political Appointments: Board members, such as Sir Robbie Gibb (ex-BBC journalist and Theresa May’s communications chief), are politically appointed, which led to debate on whether the board is too politicized.
• Allegations of Interference: Some prominent commentators called the reshuffle “nothing short of a coup” and accused the board of undermining the BBC, although the chair, Samir Shah, dismissed this as “completely fanciful.” (Samir Shah, 24:58)

4. US and UK Political and Media Context

• UK Political Response: The UK government has publicly denied the BBC is institutionally biased and called for quick corrections of mistakes, but has not strongly intervened.
• US Media Context: In the US, the Trump-BBC spate is framed as a simple scandal over the edit, without UK political backstory; Trump’s team spins it as proof of his dominance over media consequences. (Catriona Perry, 20:29)
• Global Implications: The case is seen as highlighting growing polarization and the vulnerability of public broadcasters in today’s media environment.

5. The BBC Chair Responds – Interview Highlights with Samir Shah

• Admission of Error: Shah agreed the organization should have acted sooner on the problematic Panorama edit:
  • “In hindsight, it would have been better to have acted earlier, but we didn’t.” (Samir Shah, 24:09)
• Rejection of Coup Claims:
  • “No, I do not [think there was a coup]. I think that’s a fanciful interpretation of what happens at the board... the board represents the public. It has differences of opinion and quite strongly held. The job... is to try and steer a place where it's very hard.” (Samir Shah, 24:58)

6. The Future for the BBC

• Charter Renewal Looms: The episode closes with reflections on the timing crisis for the BBC, facing intense political and media scrutiny with its Royal Charter renewal imminent and leadership in flux.
  • “It's ahead of charter renewal... the BBC doesn't have a God given right to exist... and it needs robust leadership to steer the ship. And yet we've seen two really high profile people who are good at that... now they're out the door.” (Katie Razzell, 26:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the gravity of the moment:
  • “If you’ve got the President of the United States threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion, I think we could definitely use the word unprecedented.” (Katie Razzell, 26:52)
• On BBC's history of crises:
  • “The BBC has had days like this... where you lose big scalps and it feels very dramatic and very existential but it is an organization that has existed for 100 years and has weathered a lot of stuff.” (Adam Fleming, 29:49)
• On US-UK media portrayals:
  • “Here in the US, the White House are kind of claiming that victory, essentially, as, you know, if you mess with President Trump, this is what happens to you.” (Catriona Perry, 20:29)
• Samir Shah on board politics:
  • “You will not be able to accuse a board of groupthink. It really does have a diversity of views... the board represents the public.” (Samir Shah, 25:01)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:38 – Main headlines: Trump threatens lawsuit, BBC resignations
• 03:52 – Turning point: story escalates to existential crisis for BBC
• 08:16 – Details from Trump’s legal threat letter (quoting solicitor)
• 11:37 – Katie Razzell on resignations’ background and board decisions
• 18:13 – Discussion of board “coup” and political machinations
• 20:29 – US perspective by Catriona Perry: How the story is portrayed in America
• 22:57 – Katie Razzell’s interview with BBC Chair Samir Shah
• 24:09 – Shah acknowledges delayed action on Panorama edit
• 24:58 – Shah rejects idea of board orchestrating a coup
• 26:42 – Razzell on BBC’s precarious status and need for leadership
• 29:49 – Adam Fleming on historical perspective, comparing to the Hutton Inquiry

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Summary Flow & Tone

The episode is candid, sometimes wry, and deeply analytical, with the journalists both acknowledging their proximity to the story as BBC insiders and striving for critical distance. The interplay of personal observations, institutional context, and cross-Atlantic perspectives gives listeners a vivid sense of both the stakes and the culture at play. The guest contributions from Catriona Perry and Samir Shah add authority and insight into both the US legal environment and the BBC’s internal deliberations.

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For listeners seeking to understand the high-stakes fallout between Donald Trump and the BBC – and to grasp the intersection of media, law, and politics on two continents – this episode provides exhaustive but accessible analysis, gripping context, and a sense of living through historic media turbulence.

Transcript

[Adam Fleming]

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[Ray Winstone]

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[Adam Fleming]

Hello, Big news about the BBC in the last 24 hours. Donald Trump is threatening to sue the organization for $1 billion over that clip of him and how it was edited by Panorama when they did their program last year about what happened on January 6, 2021 when there was the riots at Capital. And in addition to that, two of the most senior people at the organization, the Director General, Tim Davy, and the head of news, Deborah Turness, announced the resignation for related reasons. What is going on and what does it mean? We'll discuss on this episode of Newscast.

[Katie Razzell]

Newscast Newscast from the BBC Fat boy.

[Adam Fleming]

Sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons.

[Chris Mason]

I was the tattletale in the classroom.

[Ray Winstone]

Can I have an apology please? I trust almost nobody that daddy has.

[Adam Fleming]

To sometimes use strong language next time.

[Katie Razzell]

In mosque I feel delulu with no salulu Take me down to Downing Street.

[Adam Fleming]

Let's go have a tour.

[Chris Mason]

Blimey.

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio.

[Chris Mason]

And it is Chris at Westminster.

[Adam Fleming]

And here with me is our media and culture editor, Katie Razzle. Hello, Katie.

[Katie Razzell]

Hello, Adam. Hello, Chris.

[Chris Mason]

Hi.

[Adam Fleming]

And joining us from Washington is Catriona Perry. Hi, Catriona.

[Catriona Perry]

Hi. I'm coming to you from the White House.

[Chris Mason]

Oh.

[Adam Fleming]

And that's why we might hear some ambient noise like police cars and things.

[Catriona Perry]

And drilling and excavators and demolition crews.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, yeah, of course. Because of the new ballroom. Whole other episode of Newscast. Right, Katie, last time I was in this studio was with Laura. We were doing the Sunday morning episode of Newscast and we did a recap of what had been happening with the BBC and the stories that had been in the Telegraph and various other newspapers all last week about this letter that had been written by a former advisor on editorial standards who'd finished in the role, written quite excoriating letter about loads of areas where he felt the BBC made mistakes editorially. And Laura and I were chatting it over with Henry and we thought, well, you know what, this is going to become a bit of a parliamentary story because Samir Shah, the chair of the BBC, has got to write to the Culture Select Committee by today just explaining what was going on behind the scenes. And we thought, okay, this is not a sort of existential crisis for the BBC, it's criticism of the BBC. But then on Sunday evening, it sort of took on a slightly more existential tinge.

[Katie Razzell]

Well, I'm going to feel a bit smug and say that I did not feel the same way about it as you did.

[Adam Fleming]

Okay.

[Katie Razzell]

And all last week I was thinking, I do not understand why the BBC is being relaxed about this. I do not understand why it's not getting on the front foot. This is so damaging to the BBC. And I did think, is this the one that is going to do for Tim Davy?

[Adam Fleming]

And. But did you think it was specifically the allegation about that episode of Panorama about Donald Trump where they'd squished together two bits of the speech to make it sound like he said something he didn't say? Or was it just the combination of things that there was Michael Prescott, this guy had said there was problems with BBC Verify, there was problems with the coverage of trans issues, there was problems with Israel, Gaza.

[Katie Razzell]

What I thought was the Panorama edit was very problematic because anybody who saw it immediately, based on what we understood of it and knew of it, would under.

[Samir Shah]

Would.

[Katie Razzell]

Would think that that was wrong, that was a dodgy edit, the BBC shouldn't have done that. And because they weren't coming out and saying anything about that and saying, we're really sorry. That was an error. Everything was being lumped together and the whole of BBC coverage seemed to be being tarred with the same brush, which was it's all biased and because they hadn't apologized for the President Trump stuff, they couldn't, they didn't come out and say anything about the other things either where they whereas where in to my mind, in lots of those occasions and lots of those cases, they've already done something about it or they've already issued a clarification or a correction or they've already already apologized and yet they were saying nothing. And I couldn't understand why they were so relaxed about it. Perhaps they weren't relaxed, clearly.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, I mean you've managed to sort of dig into what might have been going on behind the scenes and we'll talk about that in a second because it explains why the BBC hadn't really done anything in the preceding week. But Chris, just that moment on Sunday night about 6 o' clock when we all got the, the push alerts saying the director general and the CEO of BBC News are resigning simultaneously just put that in a bit of context on kind of like the the new where it was on the Newsometer on the dial.

[Chris Mason]

Big yeah. I think is look and I think big because look, I'm conscious that a newscaster might think flippin heck, there's four BBC journalists talking to me in my newscast feed about, you know, their employer. And so they're bound to be sort of obsessed about it. And of course there is a truth at the heart of that observation. If as a newscaster you are concluding that but let's take a half step back and address the newscaster who thinks therefore is this somehow out of proportion because there's lots of other things going on in the news, et cetera. And, and, and like this, that the, the BBC and this is one of the joys of being a journalist for BBC News is big and is significant is in a huge player in both the domestic and international sort of news environment. And therefore when its leader and then the head of news, the leader of BBC News and then the leader of the overall organization say they are resigning and do so simultaneously, that is going to be big as it would be if the two central figures or two of the most central figures in any big national organization were to do that and do it simultaneously, particularly after days and days of headlines that have clearly been very difficult for the for the corporation and that was then fleshed out, if you like, in the hours that followed the news breaking at six o' clock on Sunday evening, when you saw the full range of political reaction that you would anticipate when you have news of this, of this scale. And that's what's played out on Sunday evening, played out again through Monday. And here's an insight into where Tuesday is going. Parliament is returning after a slightly sort of bizarre midterm little recess of a few days as a result of the conference season that came a while ago. And blah, blah, blah, Parliamentary schedules, which basically meant MPs were not on mass at Westminster today, Monday, but will be tomorrow Tuesday. And therefore we can expect a the sort of full range of political reaction in front of the cameras on top of the limited elements of it that we've had today.

[Adam Fleming]

A whole load of new momentum to the story. And then Katrina talking about adding momentum to the story throughout Monday in sort of dribs and drabs, going from sort of speculation it was going to happen to then actually seeing it happening. Donald Trump launching legal action against the BBC, threatening to, or threatening to sue the BBC.

[Catriona Perry]

Yeah, that's it. Threat of legal action. At this point, a letter from his solicitor down in Florida, Alejandro Brito, talking about what he describes as the salacious nature of the edit in the documentary. He said these fabricated statements that were aired by the BBC have been widely decimated throughout various digital mediums, have reached tens of millions of people worldwide. Consequently, the BBC has caused President Trump to suffer overwhelming financial and reputational harm. And so overwhelming is that harm that President Trump's lawyer had said if the BBC does not fully retract this documentary by Friday, 5pm Eastern Time, 10pm in the UK, then they will launch legal action seeking damages of at least $1 billion. Absolute, massive amount of money, not massive in the scale of other legal actions that he's launched about against American networks, where he's looked for 10, 15, $20 billion in damages, but still a massive amount of money. And this deadline of Friday night and.

[Adam Fleming]

Katrina, we've talked about it before in previous episodes. Media companies in the US have in the past either paid out to Donald Trump or taken quite serious action in terms of their output as a result.

[Catriona Perry]

Indeed. I mean, the list is actually quite long at this stage. And it starts from the run up to the election, exactly this time period that the President and his lawyer are complaining about the Panorama documentary from before the election last year. I mean, just in December of last year, he settled with ABC News for $15 million. That was about a comment that the news anchor George Stephanopoulos had made there Falsely repeating what President Trump had been charged with in one of his cases. They settled and paid out there. CBS News settled and paid out for $16 million earlier this year. Originally there, Donald Trump had sued them for 20 billion, got down to 16 million in the settlement. That was in relation to an edit in a 60 Minutes documentary featuring an interview with Kamala Harris. Different answers were made. The network said they'd edited for brevity in that point. New York Times there's an active lawsuit against them for $15 billion. That again relates to, to coverage in the run up to the election last year, both in the newspaper and in a book written by some of the New York Times journalists say the New York Times absolutely vigorously defending that action. And then the other big one and there are others to mention, the Wall Street Journal, he's suing them for $10 billion even though that's owned by his friend Rupert Murdoch. And that relates to that so called birthday book that we've talked a lot about and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein team.

[Adam Fleming]

So Katie, going back to what went on within the BBC that led up to all of this, first of all, let's talk about what Tim Davy and Deborah Turness said in their resignation statements. I mean how explicit were they about why they were they were resigning? I mean, for example, with Tim Davy, a lot of that sounds like it was just cumulative pressure of the job and just the timeline of what's going to happen in the next few years with the, the BBC having to launch a negotiation with the government over its next royal charter, which is the, the document that gives it a foundation to exist. It sounds like for him it was a sor combination of things rather than one thing.

[Katie Razzell]

I think that's right. And I have felt for a bit of time that there's just been these series of controversies that he has had to deal with. Apologize for whether that's the Gaza documentaries or the coverage at Glastonbury of Bob Villa and various other things in between that it seemed to me that he wasn't, you know, I always thought he. People talked about him being Teflon Tim. I always thought he was quite tiggerish. You know, he's sort of quite bouncy always and he seemed a bit less bouncy. And I had wondered for a while what he was thinking was the end game for him and whether, you know, he was gonna last the course. And so I do think that the toll as he saw it of him, of this very public facing role had just got too much. So I think there's definitely personal issues there. And I would say I definitely do not think, I mean, I know for sure that there was huge shock across the board. I mean, as in the BBC board, as it grows to across the board, when he said that he was resigning. And I really don't think that's what they wanted. So he, I think in the statement said, you know, he decided to leave. It's entirely his decision. And, and he talked about those, you know, very personal reasons for leaving. Then Deborah Turness, the head of News, the CEO of News, it seemed to me, looking at it, that in some way the relationship between her and the BBC board had broken down. I was told that on Thursday there was a board meeting that she was. Someone described it, she was ripped apart at. And that was over these, you know, arguments around BBC impartiality. And I think, you know, nobody has confirmed to me that they wanted her out. Nobody has confirmed to me that they didn't have, you know, she didn't have the confidence of the board. But it does. It did not look good. And then when you add in that my understanding is from multiple sources inside the BBC that Deborah Turness had wanted to come out on the front foot all of last week and apologize for the Donald Trump edit and the board prevented her from doing so. Now, that might be a miscalculation on the part of the board because. Or perhaps on the part of Samir Shah, the chair that, that, you know, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee had asked for a response. That response was due by Monday, by today, I think. And so perhaps he took the view, and I think he said that in an interview he gave me earlier today. He said, you know, that they took the view that they wanted to do it all in one place, but from the outside that looked like a terrible mistake. And now me. And my understanding is she was furious about that. Although it is worth saying that she was one of the people, I'm told, who for a long time was not accepting that the Donald Trump edit was a problem.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, she thought it was an acceptable bit of journalistic practice.

[Katie Razzell]

Yes.

[Adam Fleming]

Edit things for brevity.

[Katie Razzell]

Well, not, not just that. Yes, that. But also that there's context around this program and that it went out after the Congressional committee, a congressional committee had indicted Donald Trump for inciting the riots of January 6, 2021. So that there was cont around it. I think most people looking in would say, even so, can't edit two bits together without letting people know if it's materially changing the manner of his words.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, and we'll talk about the BBC board a bit more in a second. But Chris, this is where it gets a bit of nuance because, okay, the BBC is independent from the government of the day, but the previous government got to decide some of the people who are on the board now. Yeah.

[Chris Mason]

And that's the nature of how. It's a sort of arm's length, if you like. There is a, a scrutiny of the work that we do that BBC journalists do by this board that includes those where there is political involvement in their appointment. And that's where you get into a conversation about whether or not that element, if you like, of the BBC's oversight is firstly a good idea and then secondly, who it is who sits upon that. So we have the Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey this evening writing in the Guardian, and I thought I had the article in front of me on my laptop and actually some other random article has popped up instead, but.

[Adam Fleming]

In which you clicked on it on a pop up again.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, exactly. In which Ed Davey says, and this is the thrust of his argument rather than verbatim, because I haven't got the exact link in front of me, but I'll find it in a second that he makes a particular claim about one such board member, Robbie Gibb, who used to be a long standing senior politician, political journalist, editing programs at the BBC for many years and went on to be the director of communications for Theresa May in Downing Street. And it is his view, Sir Ed Davies view, that it is wrong that someone like Robbie Gibb remains in that position because he regards him as, in the words of Ed Davy, as being a kind of conservative crony. Now, the argument that is made, that defends the hiring of people like Robbie Gibb and indeed others, is that you need a. You need external people who are sort of one step removed, but understand politics and understand political news and have a variety of political points of view who can scrutinize BBC journalism and do so in a way that, that is simultaneously true to the. The desire for Jew impart. So, yeah, that argument is flowing politically, as is the view expressed by others today. Just to bring you a sense of where we are politically, Downing street commenting for the first time on all of this because they didn't last night. The Prime Minister does not believe that the BBC is institutionally biased, said number 10 in their briefing today, saying it is important the BBC acts to maintain trust and corrects mistakes quickly when they occur. For any public service broadcaster, accountability is vital, but they dispute the suggestion of institutional bias and they dispute President Trump's claim that some BBC journalists were, as he put it, corrupt.

[Adam Fleming]

And then, Katie, why is it that some people online and in the commentary around this are throwing around words like coup and political interference on the basis of how they feel members of the board may have acted in all of this?

[Katie Razzell]

I suppose the answer to that depends on who you ask, because there are plenty of people out there who are saying the reason why these words are being thrown around is because they don't want the BBC to actually have to be accountable for its actions. So they're blaming other people rather than accepting that the BBC makes mistakes and more than it makes mistakes, that it is institutionally biased. And that's obviously something that's pushed back on by many people in news, including all of our bosses. But if you take at face value or you try and unpick why people are saying that, because it is quite dramatic. You know, once those resignations were announced yesterday, I had a series of people effectively saying that to me. One source characterized what had happened as the culmination of, as they put it, a relentless critique of BBC journalism over two years by members, some members of the board and advisors, all of whom came from the same political persuasion. And they were characterizing that persuasion as, you know, on the right, pro Brexit, pro Israel. And as Chris was talking about there and you were talking about, they point to Sir Robbie Gibb as being at the center of that. So a former BBC editor who left become to become Downing street director of communications for Theresa May, and he's now a member of the board. David Yelland, who's a former sun editor, came out on X and then was on the Today program this morning calling it nothing short of a coup. And he said the BBC has been undermined, and elements close to it, as he said, have worked with hostile newspaper editors, a former and enemies of public service broadcasting. Now, when he was pressed on that, on the Today program, I did not think he came up with any real evidence for that. And obviously there are others, like the former sun editor, Kelvin McKenzie, who had. You have a very different take on it. I asked Samir Shah in the interview I did with him today whether there'd been a coup or whether there were these elements on the board and it was a sort of hostile takeover. And he called that completely fanciful and really pushed back on that and said, we've got strong voices on the board of all different persuasions, and that's exactly how a board should be.

[Adam Fleming]

And we'll talk a little bit more about your Chat with the chair in a second. But Katrina, just before you go, I mean, this is another twist in Donald Trump's relationship with the BBC because actually he's got a much kind of, he, he talks about the BBC and has way more feelings about the BBC than probably any other American president has had in the past.

[Catriona Perry]

Indeed. And he has more chatter and talks about the BBC than any other, you know, foreign based broadcaster in this country either. But it's quite interesting how it's being covered here because obviously all of that kind of back political story that Katie's been talking about there, that's not breaking into the coverage here, this is very much being presented as an edit was done in that Panorama documentary a year ago and now the DG and the CEO of the news division have stepped down as a result. And the White House are kind of claiming that victory, essentially, as, you know, if you mess with President Trump, this is what happens to you. So it's quite interesting, it's been portrayed here in quite a different way than it is in the UK with all of the backstory that goes with it.

[Adam Fleming]

Katrina, I'm going to let you go because I know you've got lots of coverage to do there in D.C. but thanks for joining us on newscast.

[Catriona Perry]

Okay, thank you. Talk soon.

[Adam Fleming]

See you soon. And then Katie, just then going on to this conversation you had with Sameer Shah. So basically the context of this, as we've discussed, was that he had to write this letter by today to the select, the media Select Committee in the House of Commons who asked loads of questions around all of this. And so he, he replied, he sent the letter, published the letter and did a conversation with you. What were the things that jumped out of that from that conversation?

[Katie Razzell]

Well, the thing that was most striking is at that point we didn't know quite how President Trump was reacting, aside from the comments he'd put on Truth Social late last night that, you know, saying BBC journalists were corrupt and all of that. And so I asked Samir Shah whether he was going to apologize directly to President Trump on behalf of the BBC. And he told me that we'd received, we, the BBC says receive communication from President Trump and we're considering how to reply. And I said, is he going to sue you, sue the BBC? And he said, I do not know that yet, but he's a litigious fellow so we should be prepared for all outcomes. And that seemed to me, you know, I read into that, yes, he's going to sue. And sure enough, you know, within half an hour of that interview, it turned out that Donald Trump was threatening to sue. I wondered whether it was quite a provocative thing to say. He's quite a litigious fellow. It is, of course, factually accurate, certainly, when it comes to media companies. But was it the thing that, you know, the chair wanted to say? Well, I suppose he already knew that. Perhaps he already knew that Trump was suing. So, you know, it was a fair enough point.

[Adam Fleming]

And then let's hear the bit of the conversation you had with Samir Shah, the chair of the BBC, about the thing that started all of this, or at least kind of catalyzed it all, which was the Panorama program's editing of that clip of Donald Trump from January 6th.

[Katie Razzell]

Mistakes are made, of course. Mistakes are made, not just in this newsroom, but newsrooms across the country, and that is one thing. And the Panorama edit looks to have been in that category, but it was flagged to you, as well as the senior news executives on the Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee. What did you do when you heard about that all those months ago? Because surely if you'd investigated then, if you said what we're saying now, you're saying now, which is apologies, this would have gone away. This wouldn't have been a problem. It wouldn't have been allowed to fester and then be leaked and come out into the very damaging headlines that we've seen over the last week.

[Samir Shah]

That's a very fair point. Let me take you back. The point of the Edgeworth Committee is to review our output and we had commissioned research into how well we covered the US elections, and that was quite a substantial piece of research. And just for the sake of providing full picture, the overall conclusion was that we'd done it extremely well, properly, impartially. We did a good job. There were areas of concern of which the Panorama edit was one. Now, in hindsight, it would have been better to have acted earlier, but we didn't.

[Katie Razzell]

Did you sweep it under the carpet? No. No.

[Samir Shah]

Well, it depends what you mean by sweeping it under the carpet. It was. It was public. We discussed it. And indeed, the reservations, some people on the board felt very strongly it was wrong, others defended, was discussed at Panorama, so they knew about that. But I think the point I'm making is, in hindsight, we should have acted earlier and taken a more formal position on it, which we've done more recently.

[Adam Fleming]

And then that thing about whether there was a coup launched by somebody on the BBC board, this is what Samir Shah, the chair of that board, said.

[Katie Razzell]

There is a viewpoint emerging from Some quarters that the board is overly political, that there's an agenda with forces working to destroy the BBC. Do you think that that is true?

[Samir Shah]

No, I do not. I think that's a fanciful interpretation of what happens at the board. I make it clear that the board has. I mean, can I say, you will not be able to accuse a board of groupthink. It really does have a diversity of views, as there are in the public, in the country itself. The board represents the public. So it's not exactly a surprise that the board has differences of opinion and quite strongly held the job of me as the chair and of all of us, is to try and steer a place where it's very hard. These issues that Mr. Prescott raised are very contentious. One where people take very strong opinions on either side and they say it strongly. Now, the fact they say it strongly doesn't mean that you're necessarily right because on the other side they say it equally strongly. So we have, we as an organisation, as journalists, need to steer apart and we try and do that the best we can.

[Ray Winstone]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I've got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are going to come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to History's Toughest Heroes wherever you get your podcast.

[Adam Fleming]

Okay, so Katie, lots to think about there, about what's happened at the BBC, what might happen in future. I mean, where do you think it's a terrible, terrible news presenter question. But where does this leave the BBC tonight?

[Katie Razzell]

I think it's really damaging. I mean, I think I said earlier, I, I really hate the word unprecedented. Like I hate the word iconic, but.

[Adam Fleming]

I think I use it quite often.

[Katie Razzell]

Oh, there we go. I don't mind it when you.

[Adam Fleming]

I use it ironically though. So I'm saying ironically ironic.

[Katie Razzell]

That's, that, that's iconically ironic. But in terms of unprecedented, if you've got the President of the United States threatening to sue the BBC for $1 billion, I think we could definitely use the word unprecedented. It feels really serious. It feels as if it spiraled incredibly fast from, you know, a week ago Daily Telegraph headlines to two huge resonate resignations right at the top of the BBC and then this President Trump news. I just keep thinking about how the BBC, you know, last Week, in a sense. It was also great, wasn't it, for the traders Celebrity traitors doing so well. All those millions of people, the fact that we all have been told that linear TV is dead and yen and yeah, all those million people sitting around on their TVs at the appointed hour watching the celebrity traitors and it was all sort of positive. And to go from that to this so fast is really dramatic. And, and the point about where they go from here is just this is such a crucial time for the BBC. You know, it's ahead of charter renewal. Those conversations have all got to be had with the government about what to, you know, the BBC doesn't have a God given right to exist and indeed there are political parties out there who don't think it should be funded the way it is. And, and that's all up for debate and it needs robust leadership to steer the ship. And yet we've seen two really high profile people who are good at that, particularly Tim Davy. You know, now they're out the door or about to be out the door.

[Adam Fleming]

All I would say about it being unprecedented is I am a BBC lifer and was here in 2003 when there was a big thing called the Hutton Inquiry, which was a big judge led statutory inquiry into a report on the Today program on Radio 4 at seven minutes past six about how the government of the day, led by Tony Blair, with his chief spin doctor, his direct communications Alistair Campbell, how they were presenting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq and it became known as the sexed up dossier. And there was this huge big inquiry and day after day people from the BBC and people from the government went to the High Court and were answering questions under oath. And then that culminated in the Director General at the time and the chair at the time. And bearing in mind the chair had a different job then because it was a different structure, it was much more kind of inside the BBC. They both went on the same day and so that felt like a pretty huge kind of thing. That feels a bit similar in personnel terms to this, but it's the Trump.

[Katie Razzell]

The President Trump side of things. It's the $1 billion, it seems.

[Adam Fleming]

Well true. And yeah, and I get that. But also at the time, that was the BBC at war with the British government, which is actually way closer to home. Look at me being the grizzled old veteran telling you, are you weird being Pollyanna?

[Katie Razzell]

Are you basically saying this is all right, it's not as bad as we think and the BBC is quite good at riding These things.

[Adam Fleming]

Oh, no, I don't think I could ever, I ever make a judgment as bold as that, because I don't think I'm qualified to. I'm just saying that actually the BBC has had days like this where you lose big scalps and it feels very dramatic and very existential, but it is an organization that has existed for 100 years and has weathered a lot of stuff. And yeah, that's basically the only point I was making. Chris, in terms of the politics of this government today, they've been pretty hands off all of this, haven't they? Other than sort of saying they don't think the BBC's institutionally biased. So, echoing the outgoing Head of News, Deborah Toness, they haven't hugely got into this. A bit like the conversation I was having with Laura on Sunday where Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, had been on Laura's program and sort of didn't put the boot in.

[Chris Mason]

So I think a couple of things here and I, I, I am conscious I tread carefully because I'm heading into sort of Katie's territory here. But just from the conversations I've had with various folk, I think the, the following two things can be true, which is that the outgoing Director General, Tim Davy, and the Culture Secretary had, I think, quite a difficult relationship, not least because of the recurring nature of various issues around the BBC that landed on both of those, both of their plates. I think it's also true to say that any Director General and any Culture Secretary will have, by the dint of their respective professional roles, you know, conversations and encounters that are not necessarily inherently straightforward. I think that is true, but it is also true that they had not seen coming in government the, the departure of a Director General, particularly in the immediate context of this particular series of rows, even if it was, as Katie's been reflecting, perhaps apparent, that Tim Davy was perhaps losing some of that sort of vim and vigour with which he'd been associated for much of his tenure in the job. I think from their perspective, from the conversations I have with folk in government, I think we'll hear more from them when Parliament returns, that they think that as far as a new Director General is concerned, with the whole business of the charter renewal process about to get underway in earnest, the current charter, which sets the terms and the purpose and the funding model for the BBC, runs until the end of the year after next, so the end of 2027, that there is a logic, if you like, to have a new Director General in place for the start of that process. Rather than potentially having a new director general halfway through that process, which is where we would have been had there been a change in a, you know, a year or so's. A year or so's time. But, yeah, there's that. There's that big conversation for this government and the future leadership of the BBC to grapple with. And, you know, that is one heck of. A. One heck of a conversation.

[Adam Fleming]

Also, just another historical thing from my own life. I remember when I did work experience at the BBC while I was at university, spending a day with the arts and culture and media unit in the news and going out with an amazing producer called Leslie. And I think we were doing a story about the BBC and I was like, what? You, the BBC have to report on the BBC? And she said, this happens all the time. And you just have to treat it like any other news story about any other organization. And that was probably like one of the first lessons I learned about journalism was about that if you work at the BBC, you'll end up covering the BBC.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. And what impartiality can look like, which is the BBC and BBC News scrutinizing the actions of the. The institution itself and holding power to account as. As I do at Westminster and Katie frequently does with BBC bosses as well as bosses of other media companies and treating it with that journalistic detachment that is central to what we endeavor to do every day.

[Adam Fleming]

Katie, thank you very much.

[Katie Razzell]

Thank you.

[Adam Fleming]

And Chris, good to see you too, Tara. And that's all for this episode of Newscast. We will be back with another one very soon. Bye. Bye.

[Samir Shah]

Bye.

[Adam Fleming]

Newscast.

[Katie Razzell]

Newscast from the BBC. Say from one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know. And don't forget, you can email us [e-mail] or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on + 440-3301-239480. Be assured, I promise, we listen to everyone.

[Ray Winstone]

Hello, it's Ray Winstone. I'm here to tell you about my podcast on BBC Radio 4, History's Toughest Heroes. I got stories about the pioneers, the rebels, the outcasts who define tough. And that was the first time that anybody ever ran a car up that fast with no tires on. It almost feels like your eyeballs are gonna come out of your head. Tough enough for you? Subscribe to history's toughest heroes. Wherever you get your podcast.