BBC chairman admits that Trump's apology for documentary came too late: 'I regret the mistakes that have been made'

The chairman of the BBC, Samir Shah, acknowledged that the public broadcaster took too long to address errors stemming from the editing of Donald Trump's January 6, 2021, speech used in a Panorama documentary.

Shah appeared before the UK Culture, Media and Sport Committee, where he pointed out that the problem was not the editing itself - a standard journalistic practice, he said - but the mistaken impression left by the editing: that Trump had urged violent action, something the broadcaster admitted it had not shown correctly.

The BBC apologized and announced it would not rebroadcast the documentary, but rejected the demands of Trump's legal team, which called for a full retraction, a public apology, and financial compensation, arguing that the defamation charge was baseless.

Shah admits the apology came too late

Shah explained that several executives, including then-BBC News director Deborah Turness, wanted to publicly apologize earlier, but he felt the proposed plan did not go far enough. He added that the board discussed the matter in May, although the formal apology to the president was not issued until November. "Looking back, I think we should have made the decision earlier. We should have pursued it to the end and got to the bottom of it. And not wait as we did until it became public discourse," he said. "I regret the mistakes that have been made," he added.