Outgoing BBC director to address all staff after Trump’s $1,000,000,000 legal threat

As Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC looms, the outgoing director of the corporation is set to hold an ‘all-staff call’ this morning.

Tim Davie will broadcast the call ‘internally’ to staff at the BBC – and employees will be able to ask questions.

Davie and Deborah Turness, another top boss, resigned over the way one of Trump’s speeches was edited for Panorama.

But time is ticking – the US leader gave the BBC a deadline for Friday to ‘apologise and appropriately compensate him’, or else he might sue for $1,000,000,000.

In a letter sent to the BBC, Trump’s attorney said he will go through with the defamation suit unless:

1. The BBC issues a ‘full and fair’ retraction of the Panorama documentary, as well as any other ‘false, defamatory, disparaging, misleading and inflammatory statements’ about the US president
2. Immediately apologise for the Panorama documentary
3. ‘Appropriately compensate’ Trump for the harm caused

Davie said that as the director general, he has to ‘take the ultimate responsibility,’ while Turness admitted that ‘the buck stops with me.’

Turness insisted that the BBC News ‘is not institutionally biased’ when she was quizzed outside the London headquarters. When asked about Trump’s comments, Turness said ‘of course our journalists aren’t corrupt.’

Who is Tim Davie?

Davie was born in Croydon, south London, and he joined the broadcaster after a career in marketing, including with PepsiCo.

The 58-year-old was appointed as the BBC director general in September 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

The first scandal Davie had to shoulder came after a report in 2021 found that reporter Martin Bashir had ‘deceived and induced’ Princess Diana’s brother to get the 1995 interview with her.

However, the Trump accusations proved too much for the director general to field.

A clip of his speech, featured in the Panorama episode ‘Trump: A Second Chance’ appeared to show Trump telling supporters he was going to walk to the Capitol with them to ‘fight like hell,’ although the quotes were made in a different part of the speech, 50 minutes apart.

The issue began to unravel after a memo, sent to the BBC editorial standards committee, raised concerns over the way Trump’s speech on January 6 during the Capitol riots was edited.

The Panorama episode came out just a week before the US elections last year. Critics have accused the Panorama video of being misleading as the clip did not include Trump’s words that he wanted to supporters at the Capitol to protest peacefully.

The US president accused the BBC and its bosses of trying to ‘step on the scales of a presidential election.’

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