US watchdog led by Trump ally investigates BBC Panorama edit of January 6 speech

A US media regulator led by a close ally of Donald Trump is examining whether an edition of the BBC’s Panorama broke US regulations in the way it edited one of the president’s speeches.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led by Brendan Carr, has written to the BBC’s outgoing director general, Tim Davie, asking whether the programme was ever aired in the US.

Davie and the head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, resigned after complaints about the show by a former independent adviser to the broadcaster. The BBC has since apologised for splicing two clips of a speech Trump made before the Capitol riots in January 2021.

Trump has since threatened to sue the corporation in Florida for up to $5bn (£3.8bn), though no case has yet been filed. The BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, has told staff the BBC is “determined to fight” Trump’s claims that the programme defamed him.

Determining whether or not the programme ever aired in the US is seen as a key part of any future litigation. The show was on iPlayer, the BBC’s digital platform, which is not available in the US.

Carr, a staunch Trump ally who has been critical of what he regards as a liberal bias in some mainstream media, wrote to the BBC on Wednesday night. The FCC has no official jurisdiction over the broadcaster. Carr also wrote to the heads of the US broadcasters PBS and NPR, which have partnerships with the BBC.

He told them he was trying to “determine whether any FCC regulations have been implicated by the BBC’s misleading and deceptive conduct”. He said that he wanted “to determine whether the BBC provided either the video or audio of the spliced speech to NPR, PBS, or any other broadcaster regulated by the FCC for airing in the US”.

The edition of Panorama, broadcast a week before the US election, spliced together clips of a Trump speech made on 6 January 2021. The clip suggested that Trump told the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell.”

The words were taken from sections of his speech almost an hour apart.

Concerns about the cut were raised in a memo by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee. He left the role in the summer.

Legal experts have questioned the strength of Trump’s case. David McCraw, the lead newsroom lawyer for the New York Times, said the BBC should have a “very solid case”.

“Without knowing anything that went on inside the walls of the BBC – what emails are there, what text messages are there – I would not be worried,” he told the Media Confidential podcast.

“It may take some time. It’s going to take some money. If no one’s seen [the programme in Florida, where the case would be filed], appropriate jurisdiction in Florida will come into play. All those things are going to take expensive American lawyers to fight off. But I think if they stay the course, they should have a very solid case.”

The BBC confirmed it had received the letter, but did not wish to comment further.