Dear Sirs
We refer to your letter.
As a preliminary point, it is accepted that the edited video in the Panorama programme was an error which should not have been made by the production company or approved by us for broadcast. We apologise for that error both to our viewers generally and to your client in particular. It was a failure of commissioning, journalistic and editorial standards. The programme has been removed from our iPlayer online platform and it will not be broadcast again with the error.
But failures of commissioning, journalistic and editorial standards do not by themselves give rise to a legal claim. We have looked carefully at your client’s claim as set out in your letter, and for the reasons below that claim is denied.
Your letter provides no evidence that your client was aware of the programme when it was broadcast or for at least a year afterwards. If your client maintains this claim please disclose evidence for our pre-action inspection that your client was aware of the broadcast before the press coverage of the last two weeks. Please also inform us when you were first instructed in respect of this complaint. In your letter you are anxious that we retain relevant documents, and so we presume you also have relevant documents about your client’s awareness of the programme. If you do have such evidence, please confirm that is the case.
The programme was not broadcast in the United States generally or Florida in particular. Our programmes on iPlayer are not available in the United States. Please provide any evidence for our pre-action inspection that the programme was watched by any person in your jurisdiction. Again, given the document retention requirements you set out in your letter, you presumably have retained such documents. And again, if you do have such evidence, please confirm this is the case.
You state in your letter three times that your client has suffered “overwhelming financial and reputational harm”. This is presumably on the Beetlejuice principle that it you say something three times it somehow appears. But your letter contains no evidence of either financial or reputational harm, let alone both. And your letter certainly fails to provide evidence of any harm being “overwhelming”. Given that your client was actually re-elected to the presidency within days of this programme being shown (in the United Kingdom but not the United States) there is no obvious harm that was suffered by your client.
If you do have any evidence of the alleged harm, either “overwhelming” or at all , and if your client continues with this claim, please provide that for our pre-action inspection. Please also provide evidence that the programme was “widely disseminated throughout various digital mediums, which have reached tens of millions of people worldwide”.
Talking of “tens of millions” you provided no basis whatsoever for the figure of one billion dollars. Please confirm whether this is a billion in an English or an American sense. As the figure seems arbitrary, please provide your workings out of the quantum. As it stands, the figure has no more meaning than a demand for one trillion dollars, or for one dollar.
Both your client and the BBC believe in the value of freedom of expression. Your client benefits from the constitutional and other legal protections for free speech in the United States. The BBC also should have the benefit of the same protections. We made a mistake for which we have apologised and undertaken not to broadcast again. But this should not be a matter for the courts.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yours faithfully
Oboogie wrote: ↑Wed Nov 12, 2025 8:40 pm Caught the end of The Media Show on Radio 4 this afternoon.Now there's a surprise. Well played her.
On it, Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker was explaining that BBC America is looking to significantly expand their operations as they have identified a market demand for an impartial news broadcaster now that Trump has effectively muzzled all US broadcasters.
This may explain the timing of Trump's move against the BBC, the last thing he needs is an off-message news source, with a high level of public trust, scrutinising his activities.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002m0cd
Boiler wrote: ↑Thu Nov 13, 2025 8:02 am "Page could not be found"?https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly49dndnn0o.amp
Lawyers for the BBC have written to President Trump's legal team in response to a letter received on Sunday, a BBC spokesperson said.
"BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president's speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme," they said.
They added: "While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim."
Youngian wrote: ↑Fri Nov 14, 2025 7:28 am BBC didn't give enough airtime for UKIP MPs. This is why you can't compromise with these people, they take it as weakness and crap on you, anyway.What's "leftist" analysis of bank bail outs? Assume Carswell opposed them (as the obscure backbench MP for Harwich, as he was then, why should the BBC have bothered with him over anyone else?). Noted leftist, George W Bush, bailed out banks, I recall.
Bectu, the biggest union in the BBC, joined calls for Gibb to be removed. Philippa Childs, the union’s head, said: “The culture secretary has been very clear in her support for the BBC and its independence. It is time for her to demonstrate that by acting now to ensure the most impartial board possible for the organisation – that means Robbie Gibb has to go.”What does that actually mean? It was set up so Lisa Nandy can't sack him. I want to ask Ed Davey the same question.
The Guardian understands that Gibb’s place on the EGSC allowed him to unilaterally order research on issues that worried him. This has raised concerns that the research enabled him to confront the broadcaster with a flow of claims of liberal bias.This is reasonably hopeful. Though I'm still not quite sure how one man, who even Tim Davie, seems to have agreed was a headbanger, has caused all this trouble. What were the others doing?
This is disputed. It is understood that research was generally commissioned by the whole committee, while editorial leaders were aware of research ordered by Gibb. All research was eventually discussed by everyone. Gibb raised at least one issue that suggested a rightwing bias, in a story on striking rail workers.
Urgent changes are now being made to the EGSC, which featured five people. Three of the five were Davie, Turness and Samir Shah, the BBC chair. The changes are expected to dilute Gibb’s role.
- By Abernathy
- By Watchman