BBC board member Banerji resigns after Trump documentary edit

Reuters

Fri, November 21, 2025 at 3:22 PM EST 1 min read

LONDON (Reuters) -An independent director on the BBC's board, Shumeet Banerji, has quit on ​Friday in the wake of what the public broadcaster said was ‌an incorrect edit of a speech by President Donald Trump and which has prompted the threat ‌of a $5 billion lawsuit.

Banerji, who also serves on the board of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries and is a former chief executive of management consultancy Booz & Company, resigned a few weeks before his ⁠four-year term was due ‌to end, the broadcaster said.

The broadcaster's news arm reported that Banerji had said in a resignation letter ‍that he was upset about governance issues at the top of the corporation.

In the letter, Banerji said he had not been consulted about events leading up ​to the resignations of the BBC's director general, Tim Davie,‌ and the chief executive of BBC News, Deborah Turness, BBC News reported.

Davie and Turness quit on November 9 following accusations of bias at the broadcaster, including in the way it edited a speech by Trump that he delivered on January 6, 2021, before his ⁠supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington.​

The BBC apologised on November 13 for ​how its "Panorama" news programme had edited the footage of Trump's speech but said there was no legal ‍basis for him to ⁠sue it for defamation.

The BBC is mostly funded by a mandatory 174.50 pound ($228.56) annual charge on ⁠British households that watch live television from any broadcaster or use the BBC's online ‌video platform.

($1 = 0.7635 pounds)

(Reporting by David ‌Milliken; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)