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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Mangaluru: Teacher booked for allegedly beating student in school
Vittla (Dakshina Kannada): A case has been registered at the Vittla Police Station against a school teacher on charges of seriously assaulting a student with a cane at an English-medium school in Idkidu village here near Vittla in Dakshina Kannada district.
According to the complaint, the student, who attends the school regularly, had gone to school as usual. Around 2 pm, the child’s parents received a call from the school office stating that their child had allegedly disturbed other students. The school informed them that when the teacher scolded the student over the issue, the child became frightened and urinated, and the parents were asked to come and take the child home.
The parents reportedly told the school staff that no one was at home at the time and requested that the child be sent home in an autorickshaw.
After returning home, the student told the parents that a teacher identified as Istikaar had beaten him severely on the hand with a cane. The child also said that he urinated out of fear while the assault was taking place.
When the parents contacted the teacher over the phone to question him about the incident, he allegedly responded in a dismissive manner.
Following this, the parents lodged complaints with the Vittla Police Station and the Child Development Project Office, seeking justice and strict action against the teacher for allegedly assaulting the child without any valid reason.
Police have registered a case against the teacher and have taken up further investigation.
