Stephen Dixon has blasted the BBC over its controversial editing of a Donald Trump speech, accusing the corporation of making a “deliberate” decision to alter the meaning of the US President’s word.
It comes after the BBC issued a major apology to Mr Trump over an edited sequence in Panorama’s 2024 programme Trump: A Second Chance?, where excerpts from his January 6 speech were stitched together in a way that gave what the BBC now accepts was a “mistaken impression” that he had directly called for violence.
Despite apologising to President Trump, the public broadcaster said that they "strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim".
Speaking on The People's Channel, Stephen said: "I tell you what, it is hard to get your head around, as a journalist, that anyone would do that.
Stephen Dixon fumes that the edit is 'deliberate'
|GB NEWS
"I’ve been in this business for 33 years now, there is no way on God’s earth that anyone could do an edit like that, one that changes the fundamental point of what he said, without knowing you are doing something that goes against every journalistic aspect. That is a deliberate act.”
Political Commentator Matthew Stadlen disagreed, and stated: "I don’t believe that’s what they did. I think they made an editorial misjudgement.
TRENDING
Stories
Videos
Your Say
"Unfortunately, where you have human beings, and the BBC is staffed by thousands of human beings, sometimes you make mistakes.
"You’ve both worked in broadcasting for years, as have I. Sometimes you get things wrong.
"And when you do, particularly if you’re the BBC, where there absolutely should be impartiality and accuracy, you apologise. And that’s what they’ve done. The idea that you pay money for it is absurd.”
The scandal has left the US president livid, with him claiming that it is now "obligation" to sue the BBC for defamation after the broadcaster allegedly doctored footage of him in a speech.
Donald Trump has been left livid
| POOL"Well, I think I have an obligation to do it... You can't allow people to do that," Mr Trump told Fox News.
."I guess I have to," he said, and accused the BBC of "defrauding the public [and] admitting it".
"This is one of our great allies... the BBC - the Government has a big chunk of that one, I guess," Mr Trump continued.
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.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
"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."