The BBC presenter never made any such statement..
The Daily Mail has once more been forced into an apology because of inaccuracies in its ‘journalism’, this time having to apologise to a BBC presenter for attributing a quote to him that he never made.
At a time when the right-wing press is keen to stick the boot into the BBC after Trump threatened to sue the corporation after Panorama broadcast a misleading edit of a speech he made before the Capitol riots on January 6, 2020, the right-wing media have failed to put their own house in order.
On Saturday, the Mail apologised to BBC presenter Nick Robinson after running a piece earlier in the week in which it quoted Robinson as saying there was a culture of fear at the broadcaster. The story quoted him saying there was a ‘fear of making decisions and a fear of the truth’ in response to Donald Trump’s wrath.
However, the Mail has been made to make a grovelling apology after it was discovered that Robinson never made any such statement. The Mail’s apology stated: “A comment piece in Wednesday’s paper wrongly claimed that BBC Today presenter Nick Robinson had said: “What we’re seeing isn’t leadership-it’s fear. Fear of making decisions, fear of headlines, fear of the truth.” In fact, Mr Robinson made no such statement. We apologise for the error.”
Robinson went on to add on X: “The @DailyMail’s correction & apology for making up something I never said comes after a week in which it has run, by my last count, 6 headline pieces condemning me for being, amongst other things, “unhinged” & “semi-deranged”.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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