The director general of the British television network BBC, Tim Davey, and the editor of the news program will resign after the controversial editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump, the BBC reported tonight.
"This is a sad day for the BBC. Tim (Davey) has been an excellent director general for the last five years," but he faced "constant pressure which has led him to make this decision" - to resign, said BBC chairman Samir Shah.
British Culture Minister Lisa Nandy said today that the accusation against the BBC that it misrepresented statements by the US president in a documentary was "extremely serious".
The case of the Panorama magazine documentary was revealed by the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, and concerns a film that was broadcast on the eve of the US presidential election on November 5th last year.
The BBC has been accused of editing separate excerpts from Trump's speech to make it appear as if he was telling his supporters that he would march with them to Congress and "fight like hell."
Trump's statement in the film reads that he will "march to the Capitol and encourage our brave senators and representatives in Congress," while the phrase "hell of a fight" corresponds to another clip.
The controversial statement refers to Trump's speech on January 6, 2021, when hundreds of his supporters marched on the Capitol building in Washington.
The media regulator warned the BBC on October 17 for "breaching broadcasting rules" over a report from the Gaza Strip in which the main narrator, a child, was the son of a senior official in the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which constitutes a "source of deception."
White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt called the BBC a "propaganda machine" and accused it of broadcasting fake news, the Guardian newspaper reported.
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