The BBC “do not care” about the criticism they face for doctoring Donald Trump’s January 6 speech, the journalist who uncovered the edit told GB News.
Speaking to hosts Andrew Pierce and Miriam Cates, The Telegraph’s Associate Editor Gordon Rayner told The People’s Channel that they broadcaster has instead “chosen to ignore” the feedback handed to them in a now leaked dossier.
In its flagship Panorama programme, Mr Trump appears to say: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not gonna have a country any more.”
However, the US President instead told the crowds that “everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.
Gordon Rayner has said the BBC ‘don’t care’ after ‘ignoring’ criticism of doctoring footage of Donald Trump
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GETTY / PA / GB NEWS
A leaked dossier also accused the BBC’s Arabic service of “minimising Israeli suffering” in its coverage of the war in Gaza.
The memo says allegations made against Israel were televised without adequate checks due to a desire always to believe the worst about Israel.
Discussing the fallout of his exposé, Mr Rayner told GB News: “I think what’s interesting is the way that the BBC has responded to this is to largely ignore it.
“I don’t think that the BBC managers get the importance of this and how terrible this is.”
He added: “They didn’t get it when it was raised internally. They kind of shrugged and said, well, we edit videos, it’s just what we do.
“And even since we published the story, I’ve spoken to people who have spoken to Tim Davie, the Director General, and he’s still basically maintaining the same line.”
Comparing the scandal to a similar error made by the broadcaster in 2007, Mr Rayner explained: “What’s interesting is if you compare that to the way they responded in 2007, when the BBC effectively faked a trailer for a documentary about the Queen, when people made it look as though the Queen had stormed out in a huff from a photo shoot, when in fact, the clip of her storming out was her walking in.
“That ended up with the controller of BBC one losing his job over that, and the difference now is that the managers just don’t seem to care about this stuff.”
He added: “And moreover, I think that because it’s Trump, there seems to be this attitude that, ‘well, it’s Trump, nobody likes him anyway, it’s probably what he would have said, it’s what he meant, so let’s just make him say it’, and then nobody’s going to mind about that.”
Mr Rayner told GB News that the BBC has ‘chosen to ignore’ feedback presented to them in the now leaked dossier
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GB NEWS
Criticising the broadcaster and declaring it “ungovernable”, Mr Rayner concluded: “They’ve made themselves rather foolish because of this, but I think the overall impression that you get from this 19-page letter that was sent to the BBC board by a former adviser to their editorial guidelines and standards committee, is of an organisation that’s kind of out of control now, that it’s almost ungovernable.
“Because so many people within that organisation now appear to come to work with an agenda.
“And rather than protecting the impartiality and the fact-based journalism that the BBC is built on and which their royal charter is built on, they just come to work wanting to promote a particular worldview, and nobody picks them up on it.”
A BBC spokesman said in a statement: “While we don’t comment on leaked documents, when the BBC receives feedback it takes it seriously and considers it carefully.
“Michael Prescott is a former adviser to a board committee where differing views and opinions of our coverage are routinely discussed and debates.”