The BBC’s flagship Panorama episode “Trump: A Second Chance?” (aired in late October 2024, days before the U.S. election) used an edited montage of President Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 remarks that stitched together lines spoken roughly an hour apart—intensifying his “fight like hell” rhetoric while omitting his calls for supporters to act “peacefully and patriotically,” a framing that critics say misrepresented him as urging violence.
A leaked memo by former BBC editorial-standards adviser Michael Prescott alleged the program’s editing misled viewers and cited wider editorial failures, sparking a crisis. BBC chair Samir Shah has apologized for an “error of judgment,” acknowledging the edit gave a misleading impression of a direct call to violence. Under escalating pressure, Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness resigned on Nov. 9, 2025.
Trump has threatened a $1 billion defamation suit, and the BBC has indicated it is prepared to formally apologize as part of resolving his legal demand; the episode has been pulled from BBC iPlayer. The row has widened into a broader inquiry of BBC impartiality across issues, with senior UK politicians demanding accountability and some calling to defund or overhaul the publicly funded broadcaster. Overall, the core facts now on record: misleading edit, formal apology for the edit, leadership resignations, and active legal threat from the sitting U.S. president.
