Posted on 11/15/2025 8:38:17 AM PST by John Semmens
With President Trump threatening to sue the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) for $1 trillion for editing his January 6, 2021 speech to make it appear that he was urging his followers to "march to the Capitol and fight like hell," BBC chair Samir Shah explained "it was all an honest mistake that we should not be held accountable for."
"First, let me point out that these words attributed to Trump are actual words he has said in public," Shah said. "It's not like we made them up out of thin air. Second, the meme that has been pretty universally shared by all mainstream media around the world is that Trump instigated the violence that occurred at the Capitol on that day can't just be a coincidence. Third, the US House of Representatives took the unprecedented step of impeaching Trump for instigating the violence after he was out-of-office. So, even if Trump's words on that day cannot be conclusively shown to have been intended to instigate violence every important person seems to believe that he had intended just that."
"It would be manifestly unfair to single out the BBC for blame in this so-called misunderstanding," Shah added. "After all, our so-called mistake occurred four years later and more than 3,000 miles from where the Capitol violence took place. It seems to me, that the closer to home American media and the US Democratic Party played a much larger and more relevant role in the alleged misunderstanding that President Trump complains about. Until these obviously more guilty parties are held to account it would be unjust for the BBC to have to pay Trump any compensation."
Zeev Avrahami, a reporter for ynetglobal, called the BBC's response "lame. The network's broadcast of a documentary titled Donald Trump: A Second Chance? misled the public about Trump. It deceived viewers who had always regarded it as a reliable source of news. However, the Trump episode was only the latest lie. In recent years, the network has repeatedly eroded its own credibility. During the war in Gaza, the BBC was caught distorting coverage and embedding a clear anti-Israel line. It has also happened in one-sided coverage of transgender issues, climate policy, immigration, and the rise of the far right in Britain. The problem is that it always bent the truth to fit the agenda it had chosen."
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My only concern, from Trump’s point of view, is if he has a statute of limitations problem. That’s the BBC’s only hope. If what this imbecile said is the only defense they’ve got, they’re in a work of hurt
A meme is not a fact.
"First, let me point out that these words attributed to Trump are not actual words he has said in public," Shah said. "We made them up out of thin air."
There you go, BBC. See how it works?
“We made them up out of thin air.”
Oh, he may have said them. But under what context, situation, and who he was talking to... Sometimes not telling the whole story is just as much a lie.
wy69
You can make up anything by slicing and dicing things that a prolific public speaker has actually said.
The BBC can’t take the hit is losing another case Trump needs to own the BBC.
They are squirming like worms in a hot skillet to get out of it.
It’s one thing to take a slice of what somebody says and take it out of context.
It’s another to fabricate a fake video - not better than if they’re conjured it up with AI.
For a ‘news’ organization to do this, it should be criminal. It could have incited a violent response, or an assassination attempt or something....oh wait.
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