A former BBC star has declared that the broadcaster’s plans to “apologise” to US President Donald Trump are “not enough”.
Speaking to GB News, broadcaster Danny Kelly hit out at the decision by BBC Chairman Samir Shah, stating that people “want blood” for the decision to doctor footage of Mr Trump’s speech.
The broadcaster’s Director-General Tim Davie announced his departure from the BBC on Sunday, admitting “some mistakes were made” in light of the string of “bias” allegations.
Penning a lengthy exit statement, Mr Davie said: “Overall, the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as Director-General I have to take ultimate responsibility.”
Danny Kelly said an apology from the BBC over the Panorama scandal ‘won’t be enough’
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GB NEWS / PA
Delivering his verdict on Mr Shah’s decision to apologise, Mr Kelly fumed: “It’s so deceitful. It’s not like it’s a little local radio station in Cornwall where someone’s just left university and they’ve glued together some audio incorrectly and it’s gone out on air, this is a flagship BBC programme.
“This is gold standard. Sorry will not be enough, because people can smell blood, people want blood. It’s got to be a sorry, but it’s not going to make any difference to whether the BBC survives.”
Highlighting the most “damning part” of the BBC’s edit, he added: “They cut away to a crowd. So you’ve got Donald Trump speaking, cut away to a crowd and overlay the deceit, and that’s the most damning thing.
“Because it took someone deliberately to cut the film and then insert a crowd, which gives them time to bring in another subject or another tone and then glue the deceit. So you’ve got Trump, then the crowd cut away and then the deceit, and that’s the most damning thing. It’s so deliberate.”
Weighing in on the doctored documentary, leader of The Climate Party Ed Gemmell said viewers were “forced’ to believe the edit was true to the events of January 6.
He explained: “It can’t be explained away innocently. What they could have done is done the first bit and then have a joining bit where a journalist is saying something like ‘and then Donald Trump said later’ and then play this other bit.
“You’ve taken away my choice in whether I believe this or not because you’ve made me believe it. Whereas if you give me that, I can choose whether I want to connect it or not, which is a completely different thing. You forced me down a channel.”
Demanding an “explanation” from the BBC for the wrongdoing, Mr Gemmell stated: “I want to see the explanation, I want to see the ‘we knew about it, and this is the action we took’. And then I’ll make my view on that.”
Mr Kelly told GB News that people ‘smell blood and want blood’ from the BBC
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GB NEWS
Delivering her verdict on the BBC’s editing, host Nana Akua concluded: “Can you imagine if that had happened here on GB News? If we had taken something that somebody of such high prominence had said and then sliced it together, deliberately altering the complete meaning.
“Because we always as journalists, we do slice things up because you can’t play the whole thing, of course, but you must make the viewer aware that it’s been sliced up. Or you’ll say ‘he then went on to say’, and then play the whole bit.
“You couldn’t just put the ‘fight’ on its own and not the rest of the speech, you’d actually have to play what he said before to use that as an independent thing, and they didn’t.”
A BBC spokesperson told GB News: “The BBC Chairman will provide a full response to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Monday.”