BBC chief Tim Davie resigns after editing scandal over Trump documentary

The director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation, Tim Davie, announced his resignation on Sunday, following revelations that a BBC documentary had misleadingly edited remarks by U.S. President Donald J. Trump. The move marks the latest in a string of controversies that have shaken confidence in the U.K.’s public broadcaster ahead of critical funding negotiations with the government.

The disputed program, an episode of Panorama aired in October 2024, spliced together sections of a speech Trump gave on Jan. 6, 2021 — the day of the attack on the U.S. Capitol — in a way that made it appear he urged supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell.” In reality, those remarks came from separate parts of the speech, and the segment was edited to appear continuous, as per reports.

The fallout has been swift. Deborah Turness, the BBC’s news chief, also stepped down. The broadcaster is expected to issue a public apology on Monday.

On his Truth Social platform, Trump called the resignations proof that “dishonest people” had tried to influence a U.S. election. “They were caught ‘doctoring’ my very good (PERFECT!) speech,” he wrote, calling it “a terrible thing for Democracy.”

The controversy gained traction after a memo about the editing surfaced in the Daily Telegraph, alongside a public rebuke from Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, who accused the broadcaster of “systemic bias” in its coverage of Trump. Turness was among those named in his criticism.

The Panorama scandal caps a tumultuous year for the BBC, which has faced pressure on multiple fronts. Earlier, the broadcaster drew scrutiny for a documentary on Gaza that failed to disclose one interviewee’s ties to Hamas, while its highest-paid presenter, former footballer Gary Lineker, left after breaching neutrality rules with political posts on social media.

Those missteps come as the BBC prepares for negotiations over its next royal charter, the framework that governs its public funding. The current model — a mandatory annual license fee for U.K. households — has been eroded by the rise of global streaming platforms. New arrangements are expected to take effect in 2027.

Davie, who joined the BBC two decades ago and became director-general in 2020 under then–Prime Minister Johnson, did not set a date for his departure.