LONDON, Nov 13 (NNN-XINHUA) – Reform UK said, it will pull out of a BBC documentary about the party, following a row over the broadcaster’s editing of a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump, the BBC reported yesterday.
The documentary, due to be called “The Rise of Reform” and air in January, was commissioned to October Films, an outside production company. The company was involved in a Panorama documentary about Trump, which has triggered a major row at the broadcaster.
In the Panorama documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?” broadcasted in October last year, Trump was shown saying, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell,” appearing to explicitly encourage the 2021 Capitol Hill riot, while the original speech was: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”
According to the BBC, the “fight like hell” comment was taken from a section where Trump discussed U.S. electoral fraud, and the two sections of the speech that were edited together were more than 50 minutes apart.
BBC Director-General, Tim Davie and CEO of News, Deborah Turness, resigned on Sunday amid the row. Davie addressed BBC employees in an all-staff call on Tuesday, admitting that the broadcaster had “made some mistakes that have cost us.”
A letter dated Nov 9, sent to the BBC by lawyers acting for Trump, demands that the BBC should issue “a full and fair retraction of the documentary,” apologise, and “appropriately compensate” Trump for “the harm caused.”
The letter said, the BBC should comply with the demands by tomorrow evening, or face “legal action” for no less than one billion U.S. dollars in damages.
It is unclear whether the documentary about Reform UK will proceed without the party’s co-operation, said the BBC.– NNN-XINHUA
