BBC apologizes to Trump over its misleading edit, but says there's no basis for defamation claim
London (AP): The BBC apologized Thursday to U.S. President Donald Trump over a misleading edit of his speech on Jan. 6, 2021 but said it had not defamed him, rejecting the basis for his $1 billion lawsuit threat.
The BBC said Chair Samir Shah sent a personal letter to the White House saying that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit of the speech Trump gave before some of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify the results of President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.
The BBC said there are no plans to rebroadcast the documentary, which had spliced together parts of his speech that came almost an hour apart.
“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 wrote in a retraction.
Trump's lawyer had sent the BBC a letter demanding an apology and threatened to file a $1 billion lawsuit for the harm the documentary caused him. It had set a Friday deadline for the BBC to respond.
The dispute was sparked by an edition of the BBC's flagship current affairs series “Panorama,” titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” broadcast days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The third-party production company that made the film spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.”
Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
Director-General Tim Davie, along with news chief Deborah Turness, quit Sunday, saying the scandal was damaging the BBC and “as the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.”
The letter from Trump's lawyer demanded an apology to the president and a “full and fair” retraction of the documentary along with other “false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading or inflammatory statements” about Trump.
It also said the president should be “appropriately” compensated for “overwhelming financial and reputational harm.”
Legal experts have said that Trump would face challenges taking the case to court, but could use the mistake to try leverage a payout.
Deadlines to bring the case in English courts, where defamation damages rarely exceed 100,000 pounds ($132,000) expired more than a year ago. Because the documentary was not shown in the U.S., it would be hard to show that Americans thought less of him because of a program they could not watch.
But the apology and retraction came as BBC said it was looking into a report in the Daily Telegraph that its Newsnight program in 2022 had similarly spliced together parts of the same speech by Trump.
If the case went to trial, however, legal experts said the BBC could show that Trump wasn't harmed because he was ultimately elected president in 2024.
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Two arrested in K'taka for assaulting minors, uploading CSAM content
Bengaluru (PTI): Two men were arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting two minor girls, recording the acts on mobile phones and uploading the videos online as child sexual abuse material, police said on Thursday.
The accused have been identified as Kiran Kumar (29), hailing from Chitradurga district, and Aditya M K (20), hailing from Shivamogga district, they said.
A probe was initiated after information was received from the NCRP portal regarding a suspected instance of creation of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) for online dissemination, police said.
Accordingly, a case was registered at Kaggalipura Police Station under relevant sections of the IT Act on May 10, they added.
Investigation revealed that two minor girl victims were exploited and videos were created and uploaded to the internet. The child victims have subsequently recorded their statements as per procedure and further necessary legal steps have been taken, Pronab Mohanty Director General of Police, Cyber Command, said in a statement.
Based on the statements of the victims, the accused persons, who allegedly assaulted the minors, recorded the acts on mobile phones and uploaded the videos online, were arrested, he said.
Following the probe, sections 65(2) (rape) and 70 (gangrape) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with relevant sections of the POCSO Act, have been added to the FIR, police said.
Officials collected relevant information and on May 12, arrested the accused persons and seized three mobile phones belonging to them, in which the videos had allegedly been recorded, he said.
The accused were later produced before the court and taken into police custody for further investigation, he added.
According to him, in CSAM cases, police usually apprehend offenders who have downloaded such content or have kept them in their possession after obtaining them from elsewhere, usually the internet.
"The present case is one of the very few instances where content creators and uploaders have been apprehended," Mohanty added.
