“This is the most abysmal, pathetic thing. The BBC head resigning because the corporation is not supine *enough* to the far-right.”
The UK right-wing media and American right are taking delight in the resignations of the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and BBC News CEO Deborah Turness.
The Telegraph has published a series of attack lines against the BBC over the last week.
First, they reported that an internal BBC memo written by ex-Murdoch journalist Michael Prescott which raised concerns that Panorama footage put two parts of a Donald Trump speech together so he appeared to encourage the Capitol Hill riot in January 2021.
Prescott also accused BBC Arabic reporters of “anti-Israel bias”.
On Friday, The Telegraph published comments from former prime minister Boris Johnson saying: “Davie must explain or quit”.
In his Daily Mail column, Johnson’s piece led with the headline: “Until BBC boss Tim Davie either comes clean on how Panorama doctored Trump’s speech – or resigns – I won’t be paying my licence fee.”
In a lengthy statement attacking the BBC, Trump thanked The Telegraph for “exposing” corruption at the broadcaster, while his press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the BBC “100% fake news”.
As Sky’s former political editor Adam Boulton, pointed out, the overall impression that Trump encouraged the riots was true. Other journalists have highlighted it is common practice to “splice together” sections of a long speech to summarise it.
While right-wing critics accuse the BBC of “left-wing bias,” evidence suggests the broadcaster has given more attention to Reform UK’s MPs than to the Greens or Liberal Democrats.
A recent Cardiff University study found Reform featured in 49 BBC News at Ten bulletins between January and July this year, whereas the Lib Dems, who have 72 MPs, featured in just 35 bulletins.
The BBC has also been criticised for its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza, with a recent Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) study showing that Israeli deaths are given 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths.
David Yelland, former editor of the Sun wrote on X: “What has happened today at the BBC is nothing short of a coup, a national disgrace, the corporation’s board has effectively been undermined and elements close to it have worked with hostile newspaper editors, a former PM and enemies of public service broadcasting. The only honourable players here are Tim Davie and Deborah Turness.”
Journalist and environmental activist George Monbiot said: “Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough…”.
Journalist Ian Dunt said: “This is the most abysmal, pathetic thing. The BBC head resigning because the corporation is not supine *enough* to the far-right.”
Political editor of Byline Times, Adam Bienkov, wrote on Bluesky: “The BBC’s senior leadership resigning en masse over one dodgy edit in one programme, simply because the right wing press demands it, tells you everything you need to know about where the power really lies in that relationship.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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