BBC Chairman Samir Shah defiantly told MPs he won't "walk away" amid backlash over the delayed response to Panorama's misleading edit of Donald Trump's January 6 speech, which spliced clips to imply he incited Capitol violence. Apologizing for the "error of judgment" and its fallout—including resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and News chief Deborah Turness—Shah vowed to "fix" systemic news issues. Ex-adviser Michael Prescott's leaked memo highlighted worsening problems but denied institutional bias.
00:00us to make sure that we start off on the right foot today. Did the BBC block the head of news
00:04from apologising for the Panorama programme before the 10th of November?
00:09I will directly answer that question but if you may forgive me I'd like to take this opportunity
00:15first of all to apologise to all the people who believe in the BBC and care for it and wish it
00:23to survive and thrive. I'd like to apologise to the licence fee payer who funds the BBC to
00:29deliver its mission and I'd like to apologise to the thousands of people who work for the BBC
00:34our staff who work with such dedication and commitment to deliver the output we all enjoy
00:40so much. I regret the mistakes that have been made and the impact that it's had. Let me now come
00:49to the question that you asked. Just if I may ask you just repeat it for me so I can answer it directly.
00:57Did you block the head, did you and the rest of the BBC board block the head of news from apologising
01:04for the Panorama programme on the 10th of November?
01:07Go back to the week, the week in which the story broke in the Telegraph and you wrote to me and I
01:15was writing the answer to you. I heard that the news wanted to apologise for the splicing of the edit
01:24with a white spark. I did not think, I thought that was a necessary thing to do but wasn't sufficient
01:30because the fundamental issue here was the sequencing of the edit and the placing of the Proud Boys march.
01:40March. I think the real issue here was the impression left that the President Trump in the 6th of January
01:47speech had encouraged call to violent action and what we had to apologise for was that as well as
01:56the splicing of the edit. It's my view that editing interviews is a normal journalistic practice
02:04so that in itself is not what the problem was. The problem was the impression that it led,
02:12that it was an impression that President Trump had called for direct violent action and that wasn't
02:18the case and that is what I thought needed to be apologised for. So the answer to your question is
02:24I didn't think it was adequate. I thought it was necessary but not sufficient. If you felt that that was the case then why was there no apology when that, when David Grossman first brought that to your attention?
02:37You mean in the EGSE meetings in January and May? I think that's a very fair question and I'm looking back I think we should have made the decision earlier I think in May as it happens.
02:50In January, you heard earlier the report came about which was about the context was how well as we do constantly review our own coverage, how we did, what went well, what didn't go well and we examined how we covered the US elections as a general point.
03:07And the report came back as you've said that coverage was on the whole excellent but there were some real issues there.
03:14Well I invited, and there was at that meeting also coverage of the Arabic service which we may come back to. I invited, which is normal, for news to give me a formal response to that research. That response came in May.
03:31When that response came, there were, one thing I'd like to make clear is that it wasn't, this was a constructive discussion that took place at the EGSE.
03:41Some very important observations were made in that report which the executives took on.
03:48For me, one of the most interesting ones was the recognition about the story selection idea and that, and I have a letter in front of me, the news report, you've got it, which said the BBC infrastructure is heavily resourced in the democratic areas and we need to move into other parts of the US to get a better sense of opinion within it.
04:08And that is an action that's going to be taken and there's going to be movement of which our resources tap into, not just the democratic hotlines where we have, we have got, in a way, over too many resources and we need to move it out.
04:21That's, I give that example simply to tell you all that this wasn't a discussion where you had a defensive news response to some very serious issues.
04:32So that was, when it came to the panorama edit, there was a difference of opinion across the board and looking back, I think it would have been better for us to pursue it then.
04:51I completely accept that, and as we go into my own understanding of how we got here, it seems to me, along with the editorial and the governance, which are important issues which we will unpack, I think there is an issue about how quickly we respond, the speed of our response.
05:14Why do we not do it quickly enough? Why do we take so much time? And this was another illustration of that. We should have, the collective, we should have pursued it to the end and got to the bottom of it and not wait, as we did, till it became public discourse.
05:33Because, I mean, I have a lot of things to say about my relationship with Mr Prescott and that report and what he did.
05:40We've got lots of questions to come on to along that line, but what I'm trying to get to is...
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