‘Can they be trusted?’ Mark White delivers BBC verdict after broadcaster ‘twists the truth’ in Trump scandal

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said "heads should roll" at the BBC, while the Government has been assured the Corperation is examining the memo leaked to the Daily Telegraph.

Speaking on GB News, Mark said: "When you’re documentary-making, you want to make powerful television but this goes way beyond that.

"They’ve taken material from completely different parts of Trump’s speech and lumped them together to change the truth of what he actually said."

The leaked 19-page dossier revealed that Panorama "mangled" footage of the 47th President’s remarks cutting from the start of his address to a section nearly an hour later to make it seem he told supporters to "fight like hell".

In reality, Mr Trump said they would walk "peacefully and patriotically" to make their voices heard.

GB News host Tom Harwood pointed out: "The astonishing thing to me is there's quite a lot that you can legitimately criticise President Trump for when it comes to January 6.

"He sat there for a long time while his supporters were breaking the windows of the Capitol.

"He could have sent out a tweet. He could have said stop. And he waited a long time before he did that. To me, that is perfect material enough to say this was not President Trump's finest hour. He could have stepped in.

"He could have prevented wanton vandalism and many people getting hurt to then go the next step and pretend that he said something he didn't fundamentally undermines the case of the people that were trying to say in the first place."

Mark added: "We're not really talking about whether Trump was right or wrong around the Capitol.

"We're talking about our national broadcaster, on its flagship current affairs programme Panorama, clearly splicing together footage and twisting the truth of what was said.

"That’s the issue here. This is a broadcaster that constantly tells us the truth matters, that boasts of having 60 staff in its BBC Verify unit dedicated to fact-checking.

"Yet it’s being caught doing precisely what it accuses others of, spreading misinformation.

"Viewers should be able to turn to the BBC for news and current affairs coverage and be confident they’re getting the actual facts of a story.

"But when the Corporation twists the facts to fit another narrative, how can it possibly be trusted on other matters?"

Reacting to the scandal, former prime minister Boris Johnson branded the edit "a total disgrace", asking whether anyone at the BBC would "take responsibility and resign".

Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman went further, tweeting "scrap the licence fee", as the BBC faces negotiations with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy over its Charter renewal in 2027.

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