The BBC has been accused of “utter denial” over their Donald Trump doctoring scandal after a second edit of his January 6 speech by the broadcaster was exposed.
Speaking to GB News, ex-Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis said the BBC has been acting “grossly unacceptably” for “years”, branding the latest revelation “absurd”.
Detailing the exposé, Telegraph Associate Editor and GB News star Camilla Tominey said that whistleblower David Chaudoir claimed concerns about the episode in question were “ignored”, despite the edit being criticised live on-air by former United States representative Mike Mulvaney.
The BBC has tonight apologised to Donald Trump, calling it an “error of judgement”. They said the Panorama programme will “not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms”.
Sir Michael Ellis has accused the BBC of being in ‘utter denial’ over their ‘absurd’ doctoring of Donald Trump’s speech
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PA / GB NEWS
Weighing in on the scandal, Mr Ellis told GB News: “The Telegraph have done great work, they are really pulling their weight and beyond, so congratulations to the Telegraph because this needs exposure.
“This is frankly grossly unacceptable and it has been for years, absolutely years.”
Criticising the BBC for being in “utter denial” despite its apology, he added: “The BBC are in utter denial. They’re in this state of fantastical disbelief. They seem to be of the view that it’s all a sinister right-wing coup.
“But it’s the groupthink, isn’t it, where there’s basically a London centric sort of liberal leftist mindset proven by the fact that someone did an freedom of information request once on the BBC and found that the newspaper that was most supplied at Broadcasting House was The Guardian, by far.”
Delivering her verdict on the BBC’s response to The Telegraph’s exposé, Camilla responded: “I think there’s something rather pernicious in blaming good journalism for exposing bad journalism.
“And at the end of the day, I’ve been through my career and I’ve often encountered extremely lofty people at the BBC suggesting that they’re a cut above the rest. We’ve actually seen them all come out of the woodwork this week and try and justify what is the unjustifiable. There’s no contrition at all from The Telegraph audience’s point of view, and maybe this is shared by GB News.”
She stated: “If GB News had spliced footage like this, we would not have heard the end of it.”
Agreeing with Camilla, host Nigel Farage exclaimed: “Ofcom would have closed us down!”
Mr Ellis told GB News that the BBC’s doctoring is ‘grossly unacceptable’
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GB NEWS
Noting that the Telegraph audience “do not want the BBC to be destroyed”, Camilla said: “My central point is actually that Telegraph readers do not want the BBC to be destroyed, they just want it to be better. That’s all we’re asking for.”
The BBC’s apology read: “This programme was reviewed after criticism of how President Donald Trump’s 6th January 2021 speech was edited. During that sequence, we showed excerpts taken from different parts of the speech.
“However, we accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action.
“The BBC would like to apologise to President Trump for that error of judgement.
“This programme was not scheduled to be re-broadcast and will not be broadcast again in this form on any BBC platforms.”
The BBC have also said the Newsnight episode which featured a second edit of Mr Trump has been “brought to our attention” and confirmed that they are “looking into it.”