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The BBC director-general resigned Sunday after the British broadcaster was criticized over editing a Trump speech that some said was misleading.
Tim Davie, 58, who has served as BBC director-general since September 2020, announced his resignation after five years leading the corporation.
His exit follows growing controversy surrounding a BBC Panorama documentary about President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021 speech, delivered before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Critics said the edit of the speech was misleading because it omitted a section where Trump urged supporters to protest peacefully.
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The speech at the heart of the dispute showed Trump telling supporters, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
The broadcast version of the BBC documentary reportedly excluded that line but retained “fight like hell.”
In a letter to staff, Davie said quitting the job “is entirely my decision.”
“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility,” Davie said.
He added that he was “working through exact timings with the board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months,” he added.
Davie’s resignation came after Deborah Turness, head of BBC News and Current Affairs, also stepped down.
Turness said the controversy over the Trump documentary “has reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC, an institution that I love. As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me,” she added.
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Pressure had intensified after The Telegraph published excerpts from a whistle-blower dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, a communications advisor hired by the BBC to review its editorial standards.
The documents criticized some aspects of BBC coverage, including the Trump edit, reporting on transgender issues and alleged anti-Israel bias in the BBC’s Arabic service.
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Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt also described the BBC as “100% fake news” and a “propaganda machine” in an interview after allegations of bias at the broadcaster surfaced.
In an interview with The Telegraph she said: “This purposefully dishonest, selectively edited clip by the BBC is further evidence that they are total, 100% fake news that should no longer be worth the time on the television screens of the great people of the United Kingdom.”
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Leavitt also said watching BBC bulletins while on trips to the UK “ruins” her day, saying taxpayers were being “forced to foot the bill for a leftist propaganda machine.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the BBC and the White House for comment.