Tim Davie tells BBC staff he sees ‘weaponisation’ as Trump threatens $1bn lawsuit – UK politics live

Outgoing director general says freedom of press under pressure: ‘We have to fight for our journalism’

Tim Davie, the BBC director general, has this morning addressed all BBC staff in an online call. He opened the address with an acknowledgment of the “very tough” period.

Then he rallied the troops, with a tacit acknowledgment of the “enemies” of the BBC, and the “weaponisation” of its mistakes.

These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things.

I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponisation. I think we have to fight for our journalism.

We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.

The letter completely states our position with respect to what transpired as well as what the president seeks, which are three things.

Number one, a full and complete retraction of the defamatory statements made by the BBC. Two, an apology to the president for engaging in such intentional and biased reporting, and three, a monetary settlement proposal to be made by the BBC in order to remedy the financial harm that they caused the president to suffer as a result of their intentional conduct.

The president clearly was not inciting anyone and anyone who reads the transcript of what the president actually said, as opposed to what the BBC wanted the viewers to believe he said, would make it abundantly clear that what the president was asking for was a peaceful demonstration, was not seeking to incite any sort of violence, and the broadcast that was aired by the BBC tried to intentionally alter that.

And so if in fact the BBC seeks to take a position that what the president actually did was to incite violence that will be demonstrated to be demonstrably false and will only compound the problems that the BBC is confronted with right now.

[The] evidence has led to an overriding and straight-forward conclusion: the central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.

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Source: www.theguardian.com

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